


Sam Cassidy-Tucker and the Mummy on the Orient Express

by rubywallace25



Series: Tucker, Cassidy, Smith and Kline [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Space, Chanelle Smith - Freeform, Danger, Dean Kline - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Harry Potter References, Post-Episode: s02e05-06 Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, alternative universe, blended families - Freeform, shouting, the orient express
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 03:17:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 33,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8781037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubywallace25/pseuds/rubywallace25
Summary: Malcolm and Sam are now proud adpoted parents to Chanelle Smith (12) and Dean Kline (3).After recieving two tickets for a trip on the Orient Express, Malcolm and Sam are Venice bound, or at least that was the plan, as usual something goes horribly, horribly wrong, and poor Sam may or may not end up in space with a certain Doctor.Enjoy.





	1. We Are Not Going on Holiday

Malcolm Tucker is happy.

Malcolm Tucker is happy for many reasons.

But the main reason that is currently making Malcolm Tucker so supremely satisfied is that everything on the schedule in front of him is being executed just as he planned.

Anyone who knows him, knows what a control freak he is, he’s not ashamed of it, not anymore at least, there was a point when his younger self had tried to deny it, but being married to Sam, a control freak in her own unique, wonderful way, has brought him well and truly out of the closet.

Malcolm’s gaze shifts from the inventory on his IPad to the assorted pile of clothes and toiletries assembled on the bed of his adopted daughter, Chanelle.

Bras, pants, socks, pyjamas, t-shirts, jeans, hoodies, jumpers, at least three pairs of different shoes, trainers and wellingtons.

“Do I have to take all of this?”

Chanelle moans, rolling her large brown eyes.

She’s on the cusp of turning thirteen, and Malcolm can’t help but note that the teenage hormones have begun to kick in already.

“Remember, Hogmanay.” 

Malcolm responds with a heavy frown, and Chanelle’s protestations instantly cease.

Remember Hogmanay is enough; THEY all remember Hogmanay, who could possibly forget it.

Malcolm attempts to hide his shudder at the memory, as he lifts Chanelle’s bright pink suitcase up onto her bed.

“Once its packed let me know, I don’t want ye taking it downstairs.”

If it was anyone else Malcolm would never trust them to pack a case all on their own, but it’s different with Chanelle, he trusts her, she’s self-reliant, and he never wants her to feel as if he’s talking down to her, because he never would. 

Chanelle is on the point of responding to Malcolm, when he younger brother suddenly races into her bedroom screaming at the top of his lungs…

“I can’t find BOB!”

Suddenly it’s Malcolm’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Let’s pick another toy, then.”

Despite still being only three years old, Dean fixes Malcolm with the sort of stare that would put even his Best Bollocking Face to shame.

He takes a step back from the little boy realising his error.

“Sam!”

Malcolm calls out to his wife, who has been surprisingly non committal ever since they’d woken up that morning.

“Have ye seen Bob?”

Bob the Pterodactyl has become Dean’s constant fluffy companion. 

“Sammy won’t come.”

Dean explains tugging at Malcolm’s sleeve.

“I knew this was going to happen.”

Chanelle exclaims, as she sinks down into the pile of her own clothes.

It’s April 2017, Malcolm and Sam had received two tickets to travel aboard to Orient Express bound of Venice all the way back at Christmas, as gift from Malcolm’s brother-in-law Trevor, who had recently gone into remission.

Three times already they’d put off going away, but the tickets were fast becoming non-refundable.

Sam doesn’t want to leave the kids, and while Malcolm understands that, and feels the same, he knows it will be good for them to all feel a bit of independence again.

Besides they are coming back, and Chanelle and Dean are going to have a great time getting to know their adopted cousins, Colin and Issy, better.

The rabbits even have somewhere to go, Beth, one of Sam’s many friends had picked them up the night before, accompanied by her new boyfriend, the talking pelvis, better known to Malcolm as the moron who almost maimed his wife, the salsa dancing teacher, Fabio.

The pair had bonded in A&E over Sam’s fractured arm.

“I will deal with this.”

Malcolm announces, feeling deflated at the total lack of faith Chanelle shows in his crisis management abilities, if only she knew.

He leaves Chanelle and Dean hunting for Bob marching straight into the bedroom he shares with Sam, where he finds his wife sat on the edge of their bed, still in her pyjamas, and casually sipping at a cup of tea.  
Nothing is ready.

NOTHING IS READY!

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Malcolm.”

Sam says, barely glancing in his direction.

Malcolm closes the bedroom door behind him.

“What’s going on here?”

He asks, trying his best to keep his voice as level as possible.

“I’m not coming.”

Sam shoots back.

Now she looks at him, and Malcolm can see the blotchy tracks running down Sam’s face, she’s been crying.

All the anger vanishes in an instant, Sam is upset, Sam has been crying, he’s made Sam cry.

Malcolm instantly crosses the floor, sinking down onto his knees, which click as he moves, down in front of his wife.

“Sam, darl, what the fuck is going on?”

He asks cautiously, reaching for her hand, Sam doesn’t refuse him, but instead lets him take her smaller digits in his own.

“I can’t do this, Malc. I don’t want to leave them. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Trevor gave us those silly tickets, and I can’t do it.”

Fresh tears spring anew, as Sam begins to sob all over again.

Malcolm can’t stand this, seeing his wife cry is like a physical pain.

He raises himself up to his full height on his knees, and pulls Sam into a hug.

She lets him hold her, her body rocking with heavy sobs, as she soaks his shoulder with her tears.

“I’m sorry.”

Sam repeats over and over again, until Malcolm silences her with a kiss, her lips are wet and taste of salt. 

“Don’t be daft.”  
He attempts to coax a smile out of her when they finally part.

Sam shakes her head.

“I’m spoiling everything I know I am, but I just can’t do this. I feel so horrible, like I’m abandoning them all over, again.”

Malcolm is floundering; he’s on the point of calling the whole thing off, when a second voice pipes up.

“Malcolm, can you give us a minute.”

Chanelle inquires in that alarmingly calm, and measured why she has.

He didn’t hear her come in, and it’s not often he gets asked to leave his own bedroom, but Malcolm takes his leave, planting a quick kiss on the top of Sam’s head before going off on the great pterosaur hunt.

Twenty minutes later Chanelle appears with a smile, and Sam starts frantically packing.

Malcolm and Sam are Venice bound on the Orient Express.


	2. Platform 3/4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to warn everyone that Cat, Malcolm's younger sister is featured in this chapter, however it's not too much and she isn't that mean to Sam lol...
> 
> Also, for anyone who didn't read the last fic, Jamie McDonald is the Father of Malcolm's niece Issy.
> 
> The real Orient Express to Venice doesn't go anywhere near King's Cross, but come on it just had to happen...
> 
> As always thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

The Tucker-Cassidy-Smith-Kline clan race through the various station platforms joined by Malcolm’s sister Cat, and his nephew and niece, Colin and Issy.

Cat doesn’t do running, at least not in the heels that she’s currently wearing, and Colin keeps wandering off every now and then to catch a new Pokémon.

Getting from A to the train is taking a ridiculous amount of time, and all Malcolm can think is that it would have been so much better if they’d said goodbye to Chanelle and Dean back at the house, but NO, the kids wanted to see them off on the train, so now they’re being followed by a human caravan of Malcolm’s extended family. 

From no kids to four kids in less than a year.

At least Trevor, Malcolm’s brother-in-law had done the sensible thing, and stayed behind in the car.

“Look, it’s the baggage trolley from Harry Potter!”

Issy calls out, as they stop briefly to check the platform number.

Malcolm has always found it disconcerting that both his niece and nephew have English accents, and not just English accents, super, fucking, weekend at Daddy’s accents, it feels wrong somehow, especially in Issy’s case.

From the corner of his eye, Malcolm notices that all three of the children, excluding Colin who is wandering off in the opposite direction have begun to migrate towards the baggage trolley, which is hanging half out of a nearby wall.

“Come on kids, it’s not far now. I’m sure Aunty Cat will take lots of photos of you and Harry’s trolley on the way back.”

Sam always on the ball rescues the situation before Malcolm loses his temper and raises his voice.

“Will she now?”

It’s fair to say that Sam and Cat have never actually gotten on, the reasons for this are the fact that Sam thinks Malcolm’s sister is possibly the worst person in the world, and for her part Cat is jealous of the much younger Sam, and the fact that she is no longer the centre of her older brother’s world.

The animosity crackles between the two women.

“Can we not just get a fucking move on!”

Malcolm growls at Cat.

With disappointed looks on their faces the children all fall back into pace.

Malcolm carries Dean in one arm, while dragging his case along in the other, Sam follows on behind with Chanelle and Issy on either side of her, and Cat brings up the rear practically dragging her son by the collar of his bomber jacket.

Finally the train looms out of the smoke on platform 4.

Malcolm is instantly transported with memories of childhood holidays long past, before his sister was born, just him and his Mum on the train, because his Dad never took any time off for things such as spending time with his family.

The train is so impressive in its scarlet, green and gold than even Colin takes a break from collecting Pokémon to stare. 

“This is pretty cool.”

Chanelle muses, it’s definitely the most enthusiastic Malcolm has ever heard his adopted daughter about anything. 

He smiles, a proper toothy smile, and watches as a dark cloud falls over his niece’s features.  
Hogmanay had not been a fun time for the Tucker-Cassidy-Smith-Kline’s for multiple reasons, one being in particular the animosity Issy had greeted Chanelle with was almost Sam and Cat all over again, but even more brutal.

Every time Issy had said something nasty, Chanelle had just hit her, which in Malcolm’s opinion had been a fine and balanced approach to the situation, but Sam would have none of it.

“Malc, come on.”

Sam says, her forehead knotted into a tight frown, as the sound of doors slamming begins to fill the air.

Malcolm lowers Dean to the floor, at lets the little boy run off towards Cat and Colin and the train.

“Ye go on, I just need a minute.”

Sam has been a master for many years of understanding Malcolm’s various codes, and despite the look she gives him, which screams we should really be boarding this train NOW, she takes Chanelle’s hand and moves off towards the train, Issy motions to follow the pair.

“Issy love, wait here a minute.”

His niece stops instantly at his words.

Malcolm rests one arm lightly across the little girl’s shoulders, as he watches Sam hugging Colin, Chanelle and Dean farewell.

She’s crying.

“Aren’t you worried about missing your train?”

Issy glances up at him, and Malcolm’s stomach lurches, because the eyes that gaze upon him are those of Jamie McDonald, wide, and blue, and startling. 

While the rest of his niece’s face belongs to her Mother, her eyes are entirely those of her biological Father’s.

It’s weird, it’s always been weird.

Issy hasn’t just inherited Jamie’s eyes, she’s also got his insane loyalty.

“What have I always told ye, all trains wait for Malcolm. F.Tucker.”

“I thought that was planes?”

Issy giggles.

“Planes, trains, cars, trucks, every form of transport will wait for me.”

Issy leans into his body, wrapping her small arm against his back, and to his shame, Malcolm realises that they haven’t been this close for a long time.

“Issy, do me a favour love. Can you look after Chanelle and Dean for me. I’d never ask ye’re brother this, cus ye know what he’s like, but I can trust ye, can’t I darl’?”

She’s looking up at him again with Jamie’s eyes.

“Always Uncle Malc, you can always trust me.”

Pint Pot Judas, the words float up into his mind unbidden, but she’s not her Father, she’s Isobel Catriona Darling, a Tucker through and through.

“I know I can lass.”

He ruffles the top of her flame bright head, just as curly as his hair use to be.

In the distance a whistle blows, Malcolm doesn’t want to have his theories about modes of transport tested in front of his adoring niece, taking Issy’s hand in his own the pair quickly dash towards the door Sam is leaning out of.

Malcolm doesn’t get as much time as Sam to say goodbye to his assembled loved ones, quick kisses for Cat, a hug for Colin, and another for Issy, who clings to him much tighter than her brother.

Distracted by the train, Dean is only half present for his cuddle, and Chanelle just gives Malcolm a shrug, and a smile.

Malcolm pulls himself and his luggage up into the carriage with Sam slamming the door behind him, and pulling down the window, so that they can both wave to their family.

Anyone would think they were never coming back the way Sam is carrying on.

The train lurches, and with a hurried flurry of goodbyes, and blown kisses they are finally off.


	3. It's All Gone a Bit Metal Men and Pepper Pots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So much of this chapter will rely on having read Malcolm Tucker and the Bake Off of Doom, but for those of you who haven't read that (shame on you) this is a sort of a Pete's World situation.
> 
> In the world of The Doctor and Rose, Sam was at Torchwood One when it fell, and was converted into becoming a Cyberman. Sam and Malcolm also had a daughter in that world called Sophia.

The train pulls away with a sudden jolt, Malcolm finds himself holding on tightly to a nearby handrail for support.

As soon as the Cat and the children drift out of view, Sam stops smiling, lowering her hand, Malcolm hears her sniffle.

No crying, they are on holiday, crying is forbidden.

Of course he doesn’t say any of this, he just stares at his wife, full of concern, suddenly guilt ridden that he’d forced her on this stupid holiday in the first place.

Malcolm Tucker feels remorse.

Any negative feelings don’t last long, because Sam is kissing him, and he just goes with it, because well, come on she’s his wife, and not only that but Sam is the most perfect person on the planet, perfect for him.

His heart does that weird squeezing thing it does, whenever he thinks about, or is close to Sam, it might well be the early stirrings of a heart attack, but to Malcolm it feels like love.

Also, as part of the process of adopting Chanelle and Dean, Malcolm and Sam had been forced to undergo all sorts of medical tests, turns out he’s actually pretty healthy, which came as a complete surprise, considering the degradation and abuse he’s put his body through.

“I’m sorry.”

Are the first words out of Sam’s mouth, after all the kissing has stopped.

Malcolm tries to reply, but Sam cuts him off.

“I’m sorry, I made so much fuss about doing this. I just, I’m still worried, but I want us to have fun.”

Sam seems to get tongue tied with her own sentence, her wide smile slips, as a dark cloud of concern falls over her pretty features.

They always have fun, Malcolm attempts to reassure her.

“I know that, but not Malcolm and Sam fun, we haven’t had that in months.”

Until this point he hadn’t been aware that they had their own particular brand of ‘fun’, but clearly Malcolm and Sam Fun is different to Malcolm, Sam, Chanelle and Dean Fun, or Malcolm Puts the Bins Out Fun.

Uncertain of what’s actually going on, and what his wife is talking about, Malcolm falls back into his most reliable of statements.

“I love, ye!”

He tells Sam over the train’s whistle, before following it up with.

“I’m hungry.” 

 

 

“I’m glad ye decided not Periscope any of that to Chanelle.”

Malcolm smiles indulgently, he’s a happy man, satisfyingly full from a plate of some of the best Eggs Benedict he’s ever been lucky enough to sample, and having just enjoyed a bout of some fairly energetic/noisy shagging.

“It was all over before I had a chance to hit the big red button.”

Sam giggles, her head resting against his chest, her dark hair spread out over his right shoulder.

Malcolm doesn’t have a come back, his brain is still lost in a post coital fog, so instead of saying anything witty, or barbed, he pinches Sam, not hard enough to hurt her, never hard enough to hurt her.

She raises herself up on her elbow to look at him, stealing a quick kiss as she moves.

God she’s lovely.

“That was some of my best shagging.”

He announces, trying his best not to sound too defensive.

Sam just rolls her eyes at him.

“Noise doesn’t equate to quality.”

She muses with a sweet smile.

Sam’s just playing with him now, teasing him, driving him mad in the way that he loves, in the way that is so unique to her.

This time Malcolm retaliates with a tickle rather than a pinch, she wriggles and squirms begging for mercy, until he has her just where he wants her on her back, and under him.

“Please, Malc!” 

Sam is all breathless, and giggly and glowing.

Malcolm takes pity on her, leaving her poor aching ribs alone, concentrating his attentions on the wet heat between her gorgeous legs, while his teeth find that certain spot against her neck.

He bites down hard.

 

 

One ring.

Two rings.

Bex picks up on the third ring.

“What the hell is going on?”

Are the first words of Sam’s twin sister.

“I don’t know.”

Sam replies her entire body shaking, as she clutches her phone to the side of her head.

She can feel her legs now, in the half light of the lift shaft, Sam can see blood oozing from the tare in her tights, from where Ollie had pushed her a little too forcefully up onto the top of the lift.

Ollie.

Poor Ollie is dead.

He died because of her, he died saving her life, what would Malcolm think of that, that Ollie Reeder the knitted scarf of a twat, had sacrificed himself so that Sam would avoid being detected.

EXTERMINATE!

She’d heard that horrible voice exclaim from her hiding place, she’d heard Ollie’s scream, and she’d clasped her hand tightly over her own mouth to stop herself from crying out in response.

Sam had never liked Ollie Reeder, he’s a cock, but now he’s a cock who has just died for her.

How did that happen, how did any of this happen?

“SAM!”

Bex’s voice brings Sam back into some semblance of normality.

“I’m still here.”

She tries to keep her voice as low as she possibly can, in the background of the call Sam can hear Sophia, her daughter wailing away, and all she wants to do is run to her, tell her little girl that Mummy is with her and everything is going to be alright.

One of them has to survive, and since it can’t be Malcolm, it has to be her, she has to try.

“I feel like I’ve gone mad, Sophia won’t stop crying, all those ghosts everyone kept seeing are actually metal robots from the future, and NOW there are these pepper pot things, flying around blowing everything to shit, number fifteen has gone!”

Sam almost feels like laughing, her sister’s description of the events unfolding around them is so ridiculous, it’s almost funny.

Almost.

“Listen Bex, wrap Sophia up warm and take her down into the cellar. Malcolm told me once, that the cellar had all been reinforced during the war to use as an air raid shelter, there are candles and well wine, stay down there, you should both be safe.”

Sam desperately wants that to be true.

“What if we’re not, what if they get inside the house? What if they find us?”

Out of the two of them Bex has always been better at keeping things together than Sam, she is after all trained to survive crash landings, but Sam can hear the panic in her sister’s voice, and she can only imagine what she must be seeing.

“If the Metal Men find you, go with them, don’t put up a fight, they want people alive.”

“And the Pepper Pots?”

Sam can’t bring herself to reply, she hears Bex stifle a cry on the other end of the phone.

“But, she’s just a baby.”

Maybe the Pepper Pots will take pity of Sam’s daughter, because she’s just a baby, but that voice, that horrible voice she’d heard before Ollie had been killed, that isn’t a voice that knows mercy for babies.

 

 

Sam wakes up with a start.

Sweaty and breathing hard, it takes her a few moments to adjust to her surroundings.

The carriage is dark now, how long has she been asleep?

The rhythm of the train suddenly feels alien and unsettling.

Malcolm is fast asleep and snoring heavily next to her, Sam cuddles in against his familiar warmth wrapping one arm around his middle, trying to be as close to her husband as is humanly possible.

It’s dark, and Sam struggles to keep her eyes open, the train rocks and sways and she falls back into sleep.


	4. Spoiling a Perfectly Good Holiday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read and commented and left kudos so far, it means tons.
> 
> The Doctor and Clara make an apperance in this chapter. I have slightly reordered the events of series 8 and 9 so that their appearance on The Orient Express takes place in series 9 after Danny's death, and just before Clara's own.
> 
> So yep as always enjoy.

5 or so hours earlier.

“Right, come on get up, I want to see the rest of the train.”

Sam exclaims as she suddenly sits up, pulling herself out of the circle of Malcolm’s warm and comfortable arms.

Malcolm in response simply yawns like a Pharaoh, while traces his index finger down the line of Sam’s exposed back.

Ideally this is how he’d like to spend the rest of the journey, fuck the train, all trains look the same, so what if this one has oak interiors, and glided fixtures and fittings, it’s just a train, no what Malcolm really wants to do is for them, him and Sam to shag their way to Venice.

Sam is still talking, and every now and then glances over her shoulder to check that he’s listening, and he nods when he thinks she probably needs him to nod. 

“You’re not listening to anything I’m saying are you?”

Chanelle’s voice suddenly pops into his head intoning the word ‘busted’.

Malcolm tries to not smile.

“I was. I am. Woman, ye have my whole attention.”

His heart sinks a little as Sam pulls her jumper from earlier back over her head, no bra though.  
Sam gives him a look.

“That’s what worries me.”

She says, as she pulls her hair out from around the neck of the jumper.

“Ah, come on Sam, who gives a fuck about the train. Now take that jumper off, ye know how much I hate chunky knits.”

With a smile Sam immediately flops onto her stomach, still wearing the jumper, but with the added bonus that Malcolm can now see her lovely, pert bare bum, and of course the indent of his teeth marks.

“This is not a chunky knit Malc, it’s a very tight weave.”

Her large brown eyes seem to sparkle, as her small fingers worry away at the fabric of her sleeve.

She’s flirting with him, for Malcolm it’s always a moment of sheer wonderment when his wife flirts with him.

“Ah well yes my love, I’m very aware of how tight that particular weave is,”

Sam dissolves into a fit of giggles, burying her head in the crook of Malcolm’s arm, shielding her face from his view as she laughs.

His eyebrows almost rise off the top of his head.

“Have I said something funny?”

Malcolm asks, as his wife continues to giggle.

“You,”

Sam raises her head up at last, her face red.

“…trying to use knitwear as a medium to flirt with.”

“Is it working?”

Malcolm asks hopefully.

“It might be.”

Sam leans forward and steals a kiss from his lips.

“Knitwear is a perfectly acceptable medium in which to flirt, my love.”

Sam is laughing again, but this time Malcolm can’t help but note that a good portion of her upper body is now resting against his own, progress.  
“Really, well you’ll have to tell me more.”

“Ye’ll probably hear me better without the jumper.” 

Malcolm is about ready to just leap on Sam and snog her to death, when her phone starts to ring, the phone actually rings.

Sam is moving across him to retrieve the bloody phone, smacking him accidentally in the face with her elbow.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

His nose hurts, and Sam’s apology doesn’t seem in the least bit genuine.

“Oh hello darling, how are things?”

It’s CHANELLE, Sam mouths to Malcolm.

Of course it’s Chanelle, even miles away the kids still have away of destroying his sex life, it’s like they have a sixth sense.

At least Sam gets told off for calling Chanelle darling, something that he knows his adopted daughter absolutely hates.

“The train is great, we haven’t had a chance to explore it really yet, but we had a lovely breakfast, and…”

Sam gets up from the bed, talking animatedly to Chanelle, Malcolm watches her still bare, still pert bum retreating into the little en-suite bathroom, at least she still has his teeth marks on her arse.

 

 

 

“How do I look?”

Clara asks The Doctor as she dances down one set of stairs in The Tardis’ control room, doing a little theatrical twirl at the very bottom.

For his part The Doctor does look up from all his flashing dials and buttons and levers to comment briefly.

“You’re still trying, that’s what counts, especially at your age.”

Her age, Clara doesn’t need to be reminded about her age, she’s twenty-nine years old, looking into the gaping chasm of turning thirty in less than three months.

Thirty, how did that happen?  
Clara can’t really imagine herself at thirty, or forty or fifty for that matter, she’d be happy to stay twenty-nine for the rest of forever.

Deflated, Clara leans her weight against the control panel, watching The Doctor as he works.

“You’re hair is rounder.”

The Doctor says as The Tardis lands.

Clara pats her brand new bob and smiles.

“Well you did say twenties glamour, and no-one does that better than Louise Brooks.” 

One of The Doctor’s attack eyebrows lifts itself from its slumber atop his forehead.

“Nice girl, fast runner, good with a disruptor.”

He’s just showing off now, the way he always does, in the way that Clara has missed.

Clara tucks her arm into the crook of The Doctor’s as they make their way towards the doors.

“Where are we?”

Clara enquires, because that’s what The Doctor always likes her to do before The Tarids’ door open, and because just for once she feels like indulging him.

The Doctor looks suitably indulged.

“There were many trains to take the name The Orient Express, but only one in space.”

 

 

“Cheers.”

Sam grins brightly as her champagne flute clinks lightly with Malcolm’s.

He winks at her.

They are sitting in the dinning car, one of the many, but the first that they had stumbled into.

Malcolm is looking resplendent in the dinner jacket Sam practically forced him to wear.

She likes him in his usual pastel shade of jumper or snugly fleece, but there’s something about her husband in formal dinning attire that always makes Sam extremely happy.

A waiter with a thin pencil moustache suddenly appears at the edge of their table. 

“Ah, if Sir and Madam wish to glance out of the window, they will see the right arm of the Pleiades.”

Sam finds herself turning her head in the direction of the window, but all she sees is her own reflection staring back at her.

It’s so dark and so cold and so empty, the void.

She jumps almost out of her seat, as Malcolm rests a hand against her forearm.

“Sam love, are ye ready to order?”

Sam opens and closes her mouth, as she struggles to find the words.

“We’re still thinking about it.”

The waiter with the moustache disappears with a nod.

Sam still can’t speak, not with her mouth at least, her brain is screaming inside her head suddenly and she feels as if she can’t breathe.

Her fingers tighten on the white table cloth.

“Sam love, ye don’t look well.” 

Malcolm’s face is full of concern, and Sam feels as if she might actually be dying.

“I don’t, I don’t feel well.”

She taste something metallic in her mouth, not blood, something different, catching herself in the dark mirror of the window, Sam sees the outline of a silver face staring blankly back at her.

Her other face.

The room spins horribly.

Sam!

Sam hears Malcolm call her name, but she can’t keep her eyes open, it’s as if someone is pressing her eyelids down, she’s fainting, this is fainting, she remember fainting from all the time she'd been pregnant.

And then…

Nothing but cold and darkness, and The Void.


	5. What You Need is a Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, this is my last post of 2016, so enjoy.
> 
> There is also a mention of miscarrage in this chapter, so please avoid if that causes you any distress.

Sam contemplates herself in the long mirror.

It’s been a while since she’s actually had the opportunity to take a good long look at herself, and she’s surprised, surprised by the older woman staring back at her.

No not old, just tired, very, very tired, and sad.

Her eyes are sad.

As a final finishing touch Sam slips the delicate golden chain around her neck, fiddling briefly with the clasp, once the necklace is secured she hides the ring away under the collar of her crisp white shirt, it’s enough for Sam to know it’s there, no-one else needs to see it.

With this final finishing touch Sam dismisses the woman in the mirror, and makes her out of her bedroom and down the stairs.

In the kitchen she finds her sister Bex munching on a slice of toast, while Sophia sits happily colouring away at the table.

Bex has been staying with Sam and Sophia ever since…well since Malcolm didn’t come home.

That was two years ago now, no over two years ago, and still here they all are, living in Malcolm’s house just the three of them, getting on with not getting on.

That’s why Sam’s decided to go back to work, because she knows Jamie needs her, and she knows she needs to get on with her life, or at least start to have one again.

Sophia needs to see this.

Sam plants a kiss on the top of her daughter’s mop of curly hair.

“Is that for Mummy?”

Sam asks as she peers down at her daughter’s colourful drawings, two green and pick scribbles, which probably to Sophia represent trees or people, maybe Sam and Bex.

Sophia shakes her head, and continues to scribble away driving her crayon across the paper, subdued, so much like her Dad without ever knowing it.

“This whole thing is fucking ridiculous.”

Bex announces as she hands Sam a cup of tea and a plate of toast.

Sam flashes her sister a warning look, and Bex quickly lowers her voice.

“Alright, this whole thing is fucking stupid. Why do you want to go back to that place? You don’t need the money,”

Bex gestures around the large, airy kitchen.

“I thought you wanted to be a writer, what happened to writing?”

The truth was that Sam had wanted to be a writer, or at least she’d wanted to write something, anything, but, she’d just never gotten around to it, or at least that’s what she tells herself.

Sam stops listening, while her sister rants on about how well provided for she is, how she doesn’t need to worry about getting a job until Sophia is at least six, they’ve done this all before, had the same argument over and over again, it always ends the same way, Sam is determined to go back to Number 10.

“He fancies you, you know.”

Sam’s head shoots up.

“No, he doesn’t.”

She counters weakly with a smile.

Of course Bex is right, Jamie does fancy her, Sam has always known that, it’s not exactly new information, but… 

“Yes, he does.”

Bex continues.

“He’s married to Malcolm’s sister.”

Bex pulls a face, but at least she stops speaking, their brief spat concluded Sam takes a bite from her own slice of toast.

Jamie is married to Malcolm’s sister Cat, miserably so.

The warm and delicious tang of butter and marmite dances across Sam’s tongue, Malcolm never really understood her taste for the yeast extract, and their daughter seems to dislike it ever more.

Silence briefly descends over the kitchen, but that particular bubble is burst by Sam’s mobile as a text from Jamie suddenly appears in her inbox.

Outside.

It’s blunt and to the point, Sam would expect nothing less.  
“I’ve got to go.”

Shooting up from the table Sam discards her breakfast, turning her attention entirely on her daughter, who appears to have caught a mood from her Aunt.

“Now, you be good for Aunty Bex. Have lots of fun today, so you can tell Mummy all about it when she comes home.”

Sam kisses her daughter’s chubby cheeks and only then does Sophia soften, wrapping one little arm around her neck.

“You’re a bloody moron.”

Is Bex’s parting shot, as Sam collects her jacket and bag from the banister, before leaving the house.

Sam doesn’t look back.

 

 

 

Sam opens her eyes.

Sam opens her eyes and the first thing she realises is that she’s no longer at the table in the dinning car; instead she’s lying back in bed.

The last thing she remembered was nothing.

Nothing at all, a blank space, a void.

Nothing, where something should be.

Sam drags herself into a half sitting position resting her back against the pillows, Malcolm is there sitting on the bottom of the bed, his shoulder hunched his head in his hands.

“Malc.”

Sam croaks out her husband’s name, the metallic taste in her mouth thankfully gone.

She’d fainted, she remembers that now, she’d fainted in the middle of the dinning car, how embarrassing.

The last time Sam fainted was in Boots, the one on their local high street, she’d had the good fortune of being able to avoid the place for a couple of months, but they’re on a train, other people will have seen, people who she’ll have to spend the next couple of days with, people who will think that she was drunk, or mad, or on drugs, or all three at the same time.

Probably, all three at the same time.

Hiding her face in a nearby pillow, Sam groans with embarrassment. 

“Sam?”

She hears Malcolm’s voice, feels the warmth of his hand on her shoulder, and Sam groans even louder.

“Leave me alone, I’m too humiliated to live.”

Her words are practically smothered by the pillow.

“Sam.”

A cold blast of air hits Sam in the face, as the pillow, her only form of defence is tugged out of her grasp. 

She closes her eyes, but that’s no good because she can feel her husband looking at her, she can literally feel his eyes, and his frown is positively audible. 

With nothing else for it, Sam decides to be very brave, and opens one eye, to find Malcolm sprawled out on the bed next to her, staring at her.

Sam opens her second eye.

“Are ye pregnant?”

Of all the things Sam had expected her husband to say, that’s quite far down the list.

She tries to read his face before answering, and the longer she draws it out, the more pained Malcolm’s expression appears to become.

His hand is suddenly on the curve of her stomach.

“No, I’m not pregnant.”

Sam admits, to herself as much as Malcolm.

He raises one eyebrow.

“Are ye sure? Only it seems as if ye might be, it’s been my experience that ye don’t tend to black out and fall over unless ye’re expecting.”

He’s worried.

Sam pushes Malcolm’s hand away, and sits all the way up in their bed.

“I’m not pregnant.”

Sam thinks about adding anymore, but she’s pretty sure her face has told that tale.

“Why didn’t ye tell me?”

Malcolm asks, and Sam watches as he rolls his wedding ring around the base of his finger.

It’s a good question, and one that has many answers, but the main ones are as follows…

“I didn’t know at first, and by the time I did, it was all over anyway, so,”

Sam feels like crying, but she holds it together.

“But, we were being careful.”

Sam simply shrugs at Malcolm’s comment.

“What can I say, you’re sperms are like trident missiles.”

She smiles at him weakly, and Malcolm’s reaction is to pull her body against his own, wrapped in his arms, listening to the comforting beat of his heart, Sam feels comforted.

“I had to ask if there was a Doctor on the train.”

Malcolm half laughs, resting his chin against the top of Sam’s head.

“Was there?”

Sam grins despite herself.

“No, just some teacher.”


	6. The Engineer in the Funny Outfit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year...

“Sammy.”

Sam glances up from her screen to find Jamie standing in front of her desk, or should she say STILL standing in front of her desk, because he’s been there for a while, and she’s been trying her hardest not to notice him.

“Yes, Mr McDonald.”

Usually Sam would never address Jamie in such a formal manner, but she’s pissed off and she wants him to know it.  
Her fingers begin to brush against her keyboard, as she pretends to turn her attention back to her emails.

He’s still standing there, his shadow falling over her desk.

Stubborn.

Stubborn.

All Sam wants is an apology, because she’s not a little girl, and Jamie has no right, NO RIGHT at all in acting like her Father, she already has a lovely non sweary, non Scottish Dad of her own.

It’s a battle of wills now, and, and, well Sam cracks first, but it’s only because she has more to say, and Jamie is in the wrong.

“You’re not my Dad, Jamie.”

Sam hits delete.

Jamie opens his mouth to respond, but Sam cuts him short with a jab of her index finger.

“My private life is my own, you’ve got no right, no right at all to make me feel like I’m…”

Betraying Malcolm’s memory, but Sam can’t bring herself to say the words, she can’t ever mention Malcolm’s name when she’s in this office.

“I have to get on with my life.”

This is the point where Sam suddenly tips over into tears.

Jamie makes a move towards her, but Sam shrugs him away.

“Adam Kenyon might not be your idea of a dream date, but I like him, and more importantly he isn’t put off by Sophia.”

Sam doesn’t mean it to sound the way it does, that her daughter is simply baggage, something for a potential suitor to put up with.

Suitor…Jesus…

Adam Kenyon would never have been Sam’s first choice of boyfriend, but he is nice, he works long hours and he doesn’t make demands on her, it’s all just enough and that’s fine, because that’s all she wants.

Just enough.

With hot tears now spilling down her cheeks Sam collects together what dignity she has left and gets to her feet.

Jamie opens his mouth, again, but she robs him off the chance to speak, again.

“Oh, and I’ve managed to rearrange the meeting with Yvonne Hartman at Canary Warf for eleven tomorrow.”

Sam probably could have put that in an email, but it feels like some sort of triumph, that despite of her tears and her anger, she really is STILL the best PA in the World. 

 

 

Buzzing.

Faint buzzing.

Sam opens one eye, and then the other.

The buzzing stops.

This is the first time she’s ever slept on a train, well properly in a bed that is meant for sleeping, not dropping off on the morning commute.

Sam rolls from her side onto her back, flinging one arm out, it’s her wake-up routine and despite the fact that she usually manages to hit Malcolm squarely in the face every time, she has no intention of stopping.

But Sam doesn’t hit Malcolm in the fact this time, because the space in the bed next to her is empty, and cold.

He’s been gone for a while, probably bored of listening to her snore, not that she ever snores.

Yawning hard, Sam sits up in bed, and just as she does this something falls from her head into her lap.

At first she thinks it might be a toy, Dean is always putting toys on her head, but Dean isn’t here and neither are his toys, and despite how perverse a sense of humour her husband has, this isn’t Malcolm’s work either.

Sam’s hands move to the centre of her lap, where she finds something cold, heavy and metal resting against the 50 tog duvet.

She’s never seen anything like it, and yet at the same time Sam knows exactly what it is.  
The word is on the point of tripping off her tongue when Sam’s phone suddenly rings. 

Keeping the small metal insect in one hand, she picks up the phone with the other, and only in this action does Sam realise that she’s no longer naked, but instead wearing a pare of pale pink satin pyjamas. 

“Malcolm.”

With a sense of creeping dread Sam wants Malcolm to be calling her.

Mrs Cassidy-Tucker do not be alarmed your transmat has been intercepted, but your signal will be retrieved soon.

A voice that isn’t Malcolm’s repeats the same words over and over again down Sam’s phone.

The strange toy robot suddenly bleeps into life, and wriggles to be free of Sam’s grasp.

Without thinking Sam throws the robot as far as she can sending it hurting across the room.

Leaping out of bed, she attempts to cancel the call, but the voice keeps telling her in its automated way that she has been intercepted and that she will be retrieved soon.

She’s gone completely mad, only she hasn’t because Sam knows what this is, she just can’t remember.

Clutching her phone tightly in her hand Sam runs out of the room without stopping to think how any of this might look.

She runs out into the corridor and straight into the figure of a man wearing a funny, old fashioned engineer’s cap, and clutching at rolls and rolls of paper.

“Watch out there, Miss.”

The old fashioned engineer tells Sam as she knocks the paper clean out of his arms.

Her phone stops, and Sam feels as if she’s coming back to herself, the panic, that unknown choking panic is gone, and she’s Sam again.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”

Sam drops down onto her knees and begins to help the engineer gather together his papers.

“My phone went wrong and there was a Cybermite in my room.”

Wait, Cybermite, had she thought that or just said it?

What the hell is a Cybermite, anyway?

“Can I take a look at that please, Miss, only I’ve always been a fan of 21st Century tech, how much did that set you back?”

The engineer whistles through his teeth as he eyes Sam’s smartphone 

“Apologies Miss, I should introduce myself, the names Perkins.”


	7. Why they Eat You, Madam.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kudos and comments so far.
> 
> I didn't want this story to be a straight up re-telling the episode, since well the episode is brilliant.
> 
> I believe they had intended to visit the wonders of the Universe in the episode and I have decided to go with that idea...anyway I'm babbling...
> 
> Enjoy...

Sam’s grip tightens on her Smartphone as she helps Perkins gather up the various pieces of paper she’d caused him to drop.

“I’m Sam, Sam Cassidy-Tucker, and I’m not a Miss, I’m a Madam.”

She waggles her hand under Perkins’ nose, letting the chocolate coloured diamond on her finger catch the light.

Perkins makes another appreciative whistling noise through his teeth.

“If it wasn’t the wrong colour, Madam, I’d swear that was the very same lump of ice that fixed the Titanic.”

Sam smiles, and any doubt that may have still lingered to her seems to evaporate away to nothing.

What was she so scared of again?

A Cyber…

No, it was gone, it was nothing, nothing, nothing at all…everything.

“Here, let me help you, you can’t manage these all on your own.”

Still holding some of Perkins’ papers, Sam pulls herself back up to her full height, which is a not particularly impressive 5 foot 7.

There’s not much in their heights, Sam and Perkins’.

“No Madam please, you’re a passenger on the train, that won’t be necessary.”

Perkins fidgets nervously; Sam knows what that feels like, the need to be the invisible member of staff, to be seen by anyone else is to fail miserably at your job.

Slipping her phone into the top pocket of the pair of pyjamas Sam never knew she owned, she pats Perkins’ arm, trying to put him at his ease.

“It’s alright, I won’t tell anyone. Anyway, you can return the favour, I’m looking for my husband, he seems to have gone missing from our suite.”

Sam avoids telling Perkins about the part where she’d woken up in a strange pair of pyjamas.

Perkins gives way to her with a quick bob of his head, how could he refuse her, it would be more than his job is worth; she is after all a passenger on the train.

They re-order themselves, Perkins in front, Sam following on behind, the train rocking as it barrels along.

“Missing Madam?”

Perkins asks, casting a glance over his shoulder, his interest clearly piqued. 

“Missing.”

Sam echoes the word back at him.

It’s not like Malcolm to leave her, especially not after she’s fainted, but surely it’s nothing sinister.

He’s probably gone to fetch her a drink or something to eat, and in that case he’s probably back in her suite right at that moment worrying himself silly about her.

But something tells Sam that Malcolm isn’t back in their suite, that if she goes back there now looking for him, she’ll find it just as empty as when she had left.

She’s overwrought.

They never should have come, Sam wasn’t ready, she didn’t want to leave the children, maybe it’s not to late, maybe they could get off at the next stop, catch a flight home, and be back in London.

“What’s the next stop?”

Sam asks Perkins.

So, she’s actually considering this, calling it a day and going home?

“That would be Botanica, Madam.”

Botanica.

“Botanica?”

“Yes Madam, Botanica, the oldest and largest garden in the galaxy.”

Sam’s brain stalls, because she can’t possibly have just heard, what she’s actually just heard.

“Yes Madam, I believe it’s the ninth wonder of the galaxy. I’ve never had much time for plants myself, but I do believe it’s quite beautiful. Mind you, you can’t stand in one spot for too long, as the plants have a tendency to get bored.”

Sam shrugs and smiles, and attempts to reconcile herself to the idea that plants might get bored.

Perkins is clearly mad.

There’s a madman on the train, and she’s holding most of his stuff.

Unable to quite believe it, Sam hears herself asking.

“What happens when the plants get bored?”

They stop just outside a varnished mahogany door, and Perkins fixes her with a look, that you’re clearly new around here look.

“Why they eat you, Madam.”

Part of Sam wants to burst into laughter, but instead she swallows thickly.

Sam doesn’t have anymore questions about the plants, and even if she did, she’s too afraid of what Perkins’ response might be.

The door opens, and Sam exhales a sigh of relief at the sight of her husband exiting.

“Malcolm.”

Sam’s greeting gets drowned out by Perkins who presents Malcolm with…

“Ah, passenger manifests, plan of the train, and a list of stops for the past six months.”

Sam blinks.

“Good work, Perkins.”

This is just…this is just too much.

Before Perkins has the chance to pass the documents to Malcolm, Sam elbows him out of the way, apologising mid elbow.

Catching Malcolm by the hand, Sam unceremoniously drags him a little way down the train corridor, far enough out of Perkins’ ear shot at least.

“What the hell is going on?”  
She doesn’t mean to sound so angry, but she’s angry and frightened at it just comes out that way.

Malcolm just goggles at her.

“Why, am I wearing these pyjamas?”

Malcolm gives her the quick once up and down, before fixing her with his attack browns.

“Well this would be my first guess, but because they’re yours.”

Still holding Malcolm’s hand tightly, Sam jabs at him with the index finger of her free hand.

“This isn’t funny. These aren’t my pyjamas, and that man over there, the one dressed up as an engineer, I think he might be mad. Trevor hasn’t booked us on some awful Agatha Christie murderer mystery package has he?”

All of a sudden Sam feels tired and light headed all over again.

“Malc, I don’t think I’m feeling very well again. Can we go back to our suite?”

The corridor spins a little, and Sam can’t be sure, but she has the strangest feeling that there are stars, actual stars and planets just outside the window.

Stars and planets where there should be fields and trees.

Sam catches herself against Malcolm as the edges of her vision begin to grow dim and dark.

Malcolm’s face and then Perkins’ swim in her vision.

Sam is standing, falling, being carried, back in bed all at the same time.

There’s a glow a strange green glow all around her, and a strange high pitched noise she’s heard somewhere before. 

“She’s suffering the affects of transmat sickness. How do the other passengers board the train?”

“From the various stations along the route, all the passengers have to physically board the train. No teleporters, they interfere with the hyperlink ribbon.”

“Clara and I didn’t embark from a station, and neither did this woman.”

“She said she was looking for her husband, said he’d gone missing from this suite, only the strange thing is, this suite hasn’t been booked for this trip, it’s vacant.”

“Then how do you know this suite is her’s?”  
“She told me her name, there’s not record of a Mr and Mrs Cassidy-Tucker booked on this journey. No Sam Cassidy-Tucker either. This is the only vacant suite on this entire train, so this must be her room.”

“A guest that shouldn’t exist in a room that’s vacant, that’s very good Perkins, brilliant even.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”


	8. Where did you get those Pyjamas? pt.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Sam/Doctor/Perkins confusion to enjoy...or well hopefully enjoy.
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Also those poor fish.
> 
> Oh, and River Song gets a mention.

“Where did you get those pyjamas?”

Malcolm’s voice rumbles in Sam’s head.

She’s back in their room lying on the bed, but nothing feels right, everything feels wrong, her body most of all.

Heavy and weightless, hot and cold, Sam feels like she’s being torn apart from the inside.

“Here Doctor, I managed to find some jam, no raspberry, only plum I’m afraid.”

Perkins’ voice chimes in unseen, as the room spins.

“Plum jam, what sort of establishment is this, no wonder the passengers keep dying.”

Dying.

Dying, did Malcolm actually just say dying?

It’s true that Sam has never felt this ill in her entire life, but she can’t be dying can she, not on a train, not on their holiday, and what’s she dying from anyway?

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Sam announces to the room.

Before she has a chance to cover the bedspread with her breakfast, Sam finds that there suddenly a spoon in her mouth, a spoon filled with plum jam.  
“The sugars in jam production are an excellent antidote to transmat sickness.”

Malcolm informs her.

Sam finds herself swallowing the jam, not because Malcolm told her to do it, but because she hasn’t eaten anything in hours, and the jam actually tastes quite nice, very nice in fact.

The effects of the jam are instantaneous, her sickness passes with little more than a hiccough, the room ceases to spin, and her head stops pounding, all in all Sam Cassidy-Tucker is back to her old self.

She even licks the back of the spoon before handing it back to Malcolm, who looks at the offending item in utter disgust.

“I’m sorry Malc I don’t know what came over me, thank you for the sugar though, you’re such a clever husband.”

Sam’s recovery is remarkable, from thinking she was possibly dying only moments ago, to wrapping her arms playfully around Malcolm’s neck, they should make an effort to always take a pot of plum jam with them wherever they go.

“Husband.”

Malcolm echoes the word back at Sam.

Something is wrong, again.

More and more of Sam is waking up, leaving behind the fug of her unexplained sickness, and as her mind and body slowly find its natural equilibrium things begin to feel less and less right.

Malcolm is all wrong for instance, he’s too ridged, too distant from her.

They are a couple who engage in various forms of PDAs, from the extreme of actually kissing in public, which never fails to send their adopted daughter Chanelle into paroxysms of embarrassment, to the less outlandish holding hands.

Malcolm and Sam are a couple who like to touch each other, which is what makes Malcolm’s behaviour seems so wrong, because he’s positively keeping her at arms length.

“Are you her husband, Doctor?”

Without giving it a single thought Sam responds to Perkins’ question.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Only after she has said the word yes, does Sam realise that Malcolm was saying no at exactly the same time as her.

Perkins’ fixes them with a confused stare.

“Right, so you’re both married, just not to each other?”

The Engineer asks in an attempt to clarify the situation.

Sam says No, and this time Malcolm says Yes.

This is just annoying now.

Sam fixes Malcolm with one of her best stares, it’s usually the sort of stare that has him doing whatever she wants within minutes, but this time he’s just frowning back at her.

“Malcolm stop it, you’re confusing the poor man.”

Sam’s not sure what’s going on, but as soon as Perkins has left their room, they are going to have a long discussion about it, with lots of shouting from her.

She removes her arms from Malcolm’s neck, and steps towards Perkins wearing her best ‘everything is completely normal’ smile.

“I’m sorry if we confused you, but this is my husband, Malcolm.”

“No, I’m not.”

Sam’s ‘everything is completely normal’ smile suddenly shatters, she spins on the heels of her bare feet to look at Malcolm.

“What?”

She joins Perkins in complete confusion.

“I am not your husband, and I’d be careful if I was you. If my wife, my REAL wife, heard you going around calling ME your husband, she’d have you with her morning kippers. Very possessive is River.”

Kippers.

Ordinarily, Sam enjoys a bit of role play as much as the next girl, well no maybe a bit more, Malcolm particularly enjoys a game that they usually engage in on his birthday, where Sam dresses up as The Doctor from Doctor Who, a female regeneration, and Malcolm gets to be her companion, they’ve even got a Sonic Screwdriver, but with that game she always knows the rules, but with this one she doesn’t.

“Malcolm, I don’t like this, please stop.”

Sam reaches out to rest her hand against Malcolm’s forearm, but he shrugs her away.

It’s just a little thing, a simple, small act, no-one else would probably notice, Perkins’ probably doesn’t notice, but to Sam it hurts, she’s being pushed away by the man she loves, and it really, really hurts.

But, this is all so silly.

“Malcolm?”

Sam tries again, because he has to know how wrong this is, how much she doesn’t like this game, how much she wants it just to go back to how it always is with the cuddles, and the kids, and the rabbits, and the fish.

THE FISH, she’d forgotten about the fish.

They’ve gone away for an entire week, and there’s no-one to look after the fish except for the automatic feeder and the water filter.

“That’s not my name. I am The Doctor. I am not your husband.”

Sam slaps Malcolm hard across the face, she’s never done anything like that, at least not to him before, there were a couple of occasions where she lashed out at her first husband Ed, but only after she found out he’d been having an affair with an accountant called Gary.

Her breathing hot and ragged, Sam stares at the red mark on her husband’s pale cheek.

“Okay, I think what I’m going to do now, is leave you two alone for a minute.”

Perkins pipes up nervously, before ducking out of the room and into the corridor, leaving Sam and Malcolm alone.


	9. Slap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for not updating this.
> 
> Also I have created a new blog on wordpress, the idea is basically that you can cosplay everyday i rl without anyone ever know-if you don't want them to, please take a look,  
> https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/
> 
> Thank you for reading.

As soon as Perkins leaves the compartment, Sam suddenly begins to feel normal again, so normal in fact, that she realises what she just done, she’s hit Malcolm.

Alright, he had been behaving very, very strangely, but to slap him.

His own hand is against the side of his face.

"I’m sorry." 

Sam takes a step towards Malcolm, watching in horror as Malcolm retreats from her.

"Oh Malc please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Please, let me take a look. " 

Sam takes another step forward, and this time Malcolm doesn’t retreat, he stands his ground and stares at her, his eyes burning.

She’s never seen him look like that, not at her at least.

And those eyes, his eyes, they are so angry and so full, full of fire and time, those eyes don’t belong to Malcolm, not her Malcolm.

"Malcolm, please.”

She tries again.

Tears rise up in her throat, her chest grows tight.

Suddenly Malcolm’s hand is away from his face, he’s holding something out in front of Sam, and she can’t quite make out what it is, because a green light is now flashing directly in her face.

As soon as it has begun it’s suddenly over, and Sam is surprised to find herself still in one complete piece.

Malcolm spins on his heels with his back towards her, shoulders hunched as he studies something intently.

"Where did you get those pyjamas?”

That was the question Malcolm had asked her before, and Sam is no further along in knowing the answer, which scares her.

Why does it scare her so much?

Because nothing here seems right, everything is wrong.

Sam closes her eyes, and exhales heavily.

"I don’t know. I just woke up with them on.”

That’s the only thing Sam feels certain of any more.

"You’re certain, you didn’t put them on in your sleep? Sleep dressing, it’s a dangerous habit, some of the coats I’ve worn…”

"There’s no such thing as sleep dressing.”

Sam snaps cutting Malcolm off.

"Well, I think I’ve just established that there is.”

Malcolm turns to face her, whatever it was he’d been looking at so intently is gone, his hands are empty.

His face is suddenly sad, as he says without any build up at all.

"I am not your husband.”

This time for a reason completely lost on Sam, she doesn’t contradict him.

Instead Sam stays very quiet, and simply stares at the man standing before her.

He certainly looks like Malcolm, but it’s all just appearances, something is missing, that unique quality that belongs only to Sam’s husband is absent completely.

She wants to scream.

She wants to run.

But Sam can’t seem to move.

She can’t seem to do anything, but stand and stare at the man who has stolen her husband’s face. 

For his part the man in front of Sam appears to be watching her just as intently, as if she was a new addition to his specimen jar.

"You are not supposed to be on this train.”

Sam sinks down onto her bed, the bed on which less than an hour earlier she’d been fast asleep, wrapped in Malcolm’s arms.

That all feels like a dream now.

Malcolm, Chanelle and Dean, the more she thinks about them, the further they seem to be in her memory, Sam can’t keep hold on them.

Her phone.  
She’s still holding her phone.

With a sort of manic desperation Sam leaps to her feet thrusting her phone in Malcolm’s face.

The pictures.

Malcolm and Sam.

Malcolm, Sam and the kids.

Sam and Dean.

Malcolm and Chanelle.

Dean and Chanelle.

Normal days, family days, caught in the pixels of her screen.

Malcolm’s forehead knits together in a tight frown. 

"That’s our life. That’s our children.”

Sam continues to scroll through the pictures in her library until she reaches the end.

There’s a pause.

And hope.

Sam’s not even sure what she is hoping for, that somehow the normal service of her life will be restored, that she’ll wake up and this will be a fever dream brought on by too much cheese.

"CLARA!”

Malcolm exclaims, almost throwing Sam’s phone back at her.

"Clara?”

Clutching her phone tightly against her chest, Sam’s nose wrinkles up at the mention of another woman’s name.

"CLARA!”

Malcolm explodes again, as he races across the room, thrusting the door open, Perkins almost falls into the room.

"CLARA!”

Malcolm shouts the name in Perkins’ startled face.

"It is. My name IS Sam.”

The cogs in Sam’s brain springs into life.

Clara it’s a pretty name, and she’s only met one once, at the baking competition at Chanelle’s school.

That Clara had been a school teacher from Coal Hill, and Sam’s co-judge in the competition.

That Clara had also been young and exceedingly pretty.

Despite the madness, Sam finds her thoughts turning dark and jealous.

"Oh so, what, it’s not enough for you, that you have a wife that’s twenty years younger than you, now you want one that’s thirty!”

Where was that even coming from?

It doesn’t matter, because Sam is at Malcolm’s elbow angrily tugging at his sleeve, trying to illicit at least something approaching a response from the man she had been married to for five years.

"They’ve taken Clara, MY Clara!”

That’s it, Sam slaps Malcolm again, and this time she really, really, really means it.


	10. Where IS Clara Oswald?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read the last chapter and left kudos, it means a lot.
> 
> I've altered the time line of this story, so that The Doctor and Clara are travelling in The Tardis after Danny's death, not before.

Clara feels groggy, head pounding and mouth dry, the morning after the night before hits her had.

With a groan she opens her eyes, a sudden blur of painful white light, causes her to snap them tightly shut, one hand hovering over her face.

One thing is clear…

Clara is never, EVER, drinking again.

Lost behind the red glow of her own eyelids, the pounding of her heart rushing through her ears, Clara struggles to piece together any of the events from the night before.

There had been Champaign, but only three glasses, two for her and one for The Doctor.

The Doctor hadn’t even finished his, she’d drained the glass when his back was turned.

So, two and a half glasses of Champaign, that’s really nothing, and while Clara’s no great drinker, she does like to unwind with a nice glass of red of an evening, or a couple of cocktails at the weekend.

Well no, if she had any other friends, any friends other than The Doctor, she’d like to enjoy a couple of cocktails at the weekend, usually she’s just running for her life.

She should try and widen her social circle, meet people her own age, Danny had, had friends, football friends, Army friends, friend friends.

Danny.

Clara sighs heavily, as his face, the face of Danny Pink floats up and out of the place she tries very hard to keep it, to keep Danny safe.

He’s smiling, and that causes Clara to smile, in her memories Danny is always smiling. 

Focus.

Her own voice chastises her.

Danny’s smiling face fades.

Champaign.

The Doctor.

A train in space, but not any train The Orient Express, the train of trains, as famous in space as it is on Earth.  
Maisie.

The last thing Clara clearly remembers is Maisie, being locked in some kind of hidden, storage room.

She had been trying to get the door to open, playing with the electrics the way she’d watched The Doctor thousands of times before, that technique usually worked for him, so why shouldn’t it work for her…well that had been Clara’s logic, anyway.

There had been a flash.

Had she been electrocuted?

Is that why she’s feeling so terrible now?

Summoning up the strength, Clara steels herself to open her eyes again.

The light still hurts, it causes her to wince in pain, but slowly the pain becomes duller, manageable.

Clara isn’t in the storage room with Maisie, and she doesn’t think she’s been electrocuted…unless…

She’s sitting on a sofa, an expensive looking white sofa, surrounded by books, a stylish coffee table, pictures and cushions.

Clara likes the cushions.

There’s also a large fish tank.

This isn’t her flat.

This isn’t her Dad’s house, or her Gran’s bungalow.

Clara has never been in this house before.

And yet…

And yet, something about it feels familiar. 

Dream Crabs.

Clara had once had a dream, where she lived in a lovely big house with Danny, the sort of house they could never actually have afforded, the sort of house they would have bought when they were older.

But Danny will never get any older.

Clara had sold his flat.

She hasn’t told anyone about that yet, not her Dad, not her Gran, not even The Doctor.

Clara had boxed up all of Danny’s things, not that he’d really owned very much, four cardboard boxes had been enough to contain his life, his mark on the world.

The flat sale had been down to her, because Danny didn’t have any family, there was no-one to morn him but Clara and his friends.

She gave most of the money away, put some of it by for a rainy day, and took her Gran to the seaside.

Danny’s legacy.

"Danny!”

Clara calls out his name, hoping that somehow he will be here.

Maybe she died.

Her fingers dig deep into the white fabric of the sofa cushions.

No reply.

Danny isn’t here, any more that he’s anywhere else, he’s just gone.

She won’t cry.

Her lip wobbles.

She refuses to cry.

A tear rolls down her cheek.

To distract herself from her tears, Clara leaps suddenly to her feet, just like The Doctor, action, action is what she needs.

Making her way over to the mantelpiece Clara studies the row of pictures arranged neatly before her.

If it’s possible her already wide eyes, widen.

The Doctor is smiling out of one of the frames, a chubby, freckled ginger child on either sideof him, a boy and a girl.

Frowning, Clara’s attention is drawn to the next picture The Doctor and Sam…

Wait…

That’s not The Doctor, that’s Malcolm Tucker, The Doctor’s double from Terry’s World.

Clara is back in Terry’s World in Malcolm and Sam’s house.

She hopes they are not on their way home, because this is going to be REALLY hard to explain.


	11. When am I ever annoying?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're back on the train with Sam, The Doctor and Perkins.

Sam is angry.

Sam is properly angry, and she never gets properly angry.

She’s scared and confused, a toxic mix of emotions at the best of times, and this is not the best of times.

Sam wants Malcolm to just stop, the joke was never funny to begin with, and now it’s just mental.

She’s seen him like this before, pushing buttons, making other people jump and dance in fear.

Mostly they deserved it, and to her eternal shame Sam had found it amusing.

Number 10 brought out the worst in most people, and it had even done a number on her, she laughed along with Malcolm, and sometimes Jamie, in the period before Jamie had been banished for disloyalty, at the misfortunes of others.

You’re not a very nice person…

Ed, her first husband, had told her that, and probably in one of the only times in his life he’d been right, working for Malcolm had made Sam a horrible person.

But she’s cured now, she’s gone back to her old self, and Malcolm is different too, so why is he acting like this?

Why is he being so cold and distant?

Why has he dragged some poor railway employee into this madness?

Why did he just call Clara Oswald, a woman who to Sam’s best recollections they had only met twice, HIS CLARA?

Sam’s chest tightens, her throat constricts painfully.

"Your Clara!”

She exclaims.

Sam’s not thinking clearly as she launches herself forward to renew her attack on Malcolm.  
Perkins catches her, holding her at bay, one hand around her waist, the other on her wrist.

"There, now Madam, please.”

Perkins attempts to placate her, but Sam struggles against him.

"Are you sure, you two aren’t married?”

Perkins’ question is probably meant as a joke, a joke that Sam doesn’t find remotely funny, she finds it so unfunny in fact, that she sinks her teeth into his arm.

"OW!”

Perkins wails in pain, realising Sam instantly.

"She bit me. YOU, bit me.”

Perkins’ tells Sam, cradling his injured hand against his chest.

Seeing poor Perkins in such a state softens Sam.

"I’m sorry.”

She apologies.

Perkins gives a quick nod of acceptance, his gaze never leaving the raised welt on his hand.

Silence descends, Sam finds herself staring at Malcolm’s back, not speaking, just looking, as she tries to fathom what’s happened to her husband.

The silence doesn’t last, a tall man, with a thin pencil moustache and an excitable air appears suddenly in the doorway of Sam’s suite, red faced and breathing hard, he’s clearly been running.

"Professor Moorhouse?”

Perkins pipes up.

"Doctor, you must come with me now, there’s been another one. Another death, just like the last!”

The man identified as Professor Moorhouse explains in a breathy and excitable voice.

Sam is dreaming.

Sam must be dreaming, it’s being on The Orient Express, the holiday excitement, it’s all combined in some vivid, fever dream.

No one this is real, and in a moment, however long a moment lasts in a dream, she’ll wake up.

Is this her next book, is this the idea for the next book she will right, a spoof on Agatha Christie, after all The Angry Spider, the collection of incredibly successful books she had written for the under 5’s had come to her almost fully formed in a dream.

Sam doesn’t want to wake up just yet then; she wants to see where this plot goes.

She’ll have to do something with the character of The Doctor, why do all her main characters have to be so obviously based on her husband?

"Show me!”

Professor Moorhouse gives a quick, curt little nod, and hurries away.

Perkins glances at Sam, and then at Malcolm, before trailing after the professor.

Sam goes to follow, but Malcolm blocks her path.

"Stay here.”

"No! I’m coming with you; I want to know what’s going on.”

Sam leaves out any mention of dreams or future book ideas, in case she accidently wakes herself up.

"Don’t be annoying.”

Malcolm warns Sam, before taking her hand in his own.

Sam smiles up at him.

"When am I EVER annoying?”

Malcolm doesn’t answer Sam’s question, her simply yanks her hand forward as they set off a break neck speed down the corridor.


	12. Never Touch a Timelord's Sonic Screwdriver While It's Working on a Deadlock Seal

It had been a shock.

Seeing the poor man lying there, still in his chef whites, and as dead as a doornail.

Sam had never seen a dead body before.

Technically she still hadn’t, since this was all a dream.

But the effect on her had still been the same, dream or no, Sam had been horrified, she’d felt sick and then numb.

Hours had passed since then, two to be exact.

This was the part they usually skipped over in most of the crime fiction she had read, the part with all the sitting about waiting for something to happen.

In all the time that has passed, Malcolm has never stopped looking at her, his brow furrowed, he seemed more concerned with her, than the fact that a man had just died.

Sitting in her chair, trying to avoid Malcolm’s gaze, listening to the sound of Perkins and Professor Moorhouse’s combined snores, Sam tries to compile a list of suspects, because after all, ever good murder mystery needs a red herring or two, and of course the eventual murder/murders.

The more details she gives this dream, the more likely she’ll be able to hold onto it when she wakes.

Accounting for the fact that she’s probably not the murderer, although that would be quite clever if she was, Sam also rules out Malcolm and Perkins, since they were altogether, while the chef was being murdered.

Or were they?

Perkins had stepped out of the compartment for a few moments, would that have been long enough to do the dreaded deed?

Perhaps, it would certainly be an interesting twist, a character who was under the readers nose the whole time.

But perhaps too clever, and maybe a little too Evil Under the Sun.

Sam has to be careful, she doesn’t want to parody Agatha Christie into ridiculousness.

Maybe this whole plot is ridiculous, Sam can just imagine what her agent will say when she presents her with this.

J.K Rowling writes crime fiction, why shouldn’t Sam Cassidy-Tucker give it a go?

She can always use a pseudonym, perhaps that’s the reason the name Clara has popped up so many times, it’s either Sam’s character name, or a big arrow pointing to her future pseudonym, she has to admit it is a pretty name.

Sam drags herself back to the question of suspects.

Professor Moorhouse is one, although Sam doesn’t think he actually committed the murder, he’ll be a nice red herring until she decides to kill him off at around the twelfth chapter mark.

Sam’s eyelids begin to droop.

Is it normal to fall asleep inside a dream?

She can’t remember if she’s ever done it before, but normal or not, she’s struggling to keep her eyes open.

Every now and then Sam jerks her head a little in an attempt to keep her eyes open, each blink seems heavier than the last.

Malcolm’s voice wakes her with a sudden jolt.

How long has she been asleep, minutes, hours?

Sam twists in her seat, her neck feels stiff from where she must have fallen asleep at an awkward angle.

Malcolm has his back to her again, a phone clutched at the side of his head, as he barks instructions at the voice on the other end.

That’s the Malcolm she recognises of old, and despite her tiredness, the pain in her neck, and the fact that this is all a dream, Sam smiles indulgently at her husband’s back.

His not too far away, from where she sits Sam could easily reach out, take his hand in her own.

BANG.

The noise comes out of nowhere and causes Sam to leap to her feet, as she moves a man’s jacket slips from around her middle, where is must have been draped while she slept.

Professor Moorhouse’s jacket.

BANG.

Perkins and Professor Moorhouse stir into life, Perkins yawning wide.

Malcolm strides past them in the direction of the noise, the phone still in his hand.  
They are the main characters, Sam and Malcolm, some sort of crime fighting husband and wife duo, Tommy and Tuppence with marital issues, where ever Malcolm goes, Sam knows her character should probably follow, that is until one of them decides to go investigating alone.

Sam doesn’t fancy doing any investigating on her own at this precise moment, so she hurries along after him.

Malcolm walks fast, he always has, but that’s okay because Sam can keep up, but this version of Malcolm must move like lightening because he’s already up one end of the luggage compartment when Sam enters at the other.

TARDIS.

Sam clocks the TARDIS.

That will have to go, she can’t have any of Malcolm’s weird obsession with Doctor Who seeping into this dream, or her book.

Staring at the iconic blue box Sam tries to make it disappear with her will, but the thing just looms there.

Okay, so maybe the TARDIS can stay, but the Sonic Screwdriver has to go, because for Sam at least, that particular item of sci-fi memorabilia, has only sexual connotations.

Actually not just for her, she’d found a whole website dedicated to Sonic Screwdriver related sex toys just in time for Malcolm’s birthday.

She really is a good wife.

"Put that thing away will you.”

Sam says, as she joins Malcolm at the side of a very un- Agatha Christie- ish looking door.

"The Sonics not working.”

Malcolm growls down the line ignoring Sam’s comment.

The green light begins to waver in exactly the same way as it always does at home when it needs a change of batteries.

"Give it here, it just needs new batteries.”

Sam tells Malcolm as she attempts to catch hold of the Sonic Screwdriver.

Blistering heat sears her hand, causing Sam to fall backwards in pain, clutching at her burnt hand.

"Never touch a Timelord's Sonic Screwdriver, while it’s working on a deadlock seal.”

Sam’s not really listening, she’s too busy staring at her hand and trying not to cry.

Her brain is also reeling.

Her hand hurts, she’s in agony, it feels like a burn a proper one, and if that feels real, then maybe this is…REAL.


	13. François Moorhouse

Sam’s mind is reeling.

She winces as Professor Moorhouse bandages her badly burned hand, he gives her an apologetic look.

None of this is real, none of this can be happening...and yet it is.

Her hand alone is proof of that, the pain.

This is not a dream.

Perhaps she’s gone mad?

A worse thought occurs to Sam, perhaps she is suddenly sane, what is her life with Malcolm and the kids had been the delusion.

Sam’s undamaged hand shakes as she reaches out for her phone, sliding it across a metal worktop, she scrolls through the pictures of her life, reminding herself that Malcolm and the kids are REAL.

She has to get back to them, somehow.

"You have a charming family.”

Professor Moorhouse nods towards the image on Sam’s phone, it’s a photo of her, Chanelle and Dean taken by Malcolm, the three of them are smiling.

Sam’s echoes her own long, distant smile, with a heavy frown.

She has to find some way of snapping out of this, after all, if she was going to have a psychotic break and fantasies about fictional characters, Captain Wentworth would be at the top of her list, not Doctor Who.  
Other than her husband Malcolm, Sam’s not sure anyone has sexual fantasies about Doctor Who.

"Thank you.”

Sam remembers how to be polite.

She winces again, as Professor Moorhouse secures her bandage with a safety pin.

"Best I can do I’m afraid, learned a bit about patching up, during my years out in the field, I’m behind a desk now, but, but I shouldn’t worry about the hand, a quick blast from a derma regen and you’ll be as good as new. ”

Sam hardly knows him, but Professor Moorhouse appears to have a habit of talking A LOT, when he’s nervous. 

Sam tries to put him at his ease.

"What are you a Professor of?”

Sam rescues her hand from Professor Moorhouse’s grasp, resting it limply, uselessly, painfully in her lap.

Instantly he perks up, sitting straighter, attracted by her interest.

"Alien Mythology.”

Sam swallows thickly.

"Mind you it took me a long time to decide on the discipline, I was constantly flitting between that and archaeology. That’s how I learned first aid, with digs sometimes, hundreds of miles from the nearest inhabited city, one needs to know how to patch someone up. ”

"Well, your skills haven’t disserted you.”

Professor Moorhouse’s complexion flushes.

Sam takes a minute to glance around the compartment, The Doctor and Perkins are in the luggage carriage trying to open the door.

The last time Sam had seen Perkins, he’d been on his knees shoulder deep into a wall panel.

The Doctor, she’d actually thought of him that way, the man who had stolen Malcolm’s face.

Oh god, she really is mad.

"What ages are your children?”  
Professor Moorhouse disturbs the growing sense of panic, which has begun to well up inside of Sam.

She blinks at him for a moment.

"Chanelle is twelve and Dean is three.”

Sam can’t let either of them down, not after everything they’ve been through, she’d made a promise to them, to herself, she’d always be there, so she has to be, she has to get over this, whatever THIS is.

"Wonderful ages.”

Professor Moorhouse muses wistfully.

"Do you have a family, Professor?”

Sam carefully enquires.

"A daughter, François, but she’s all grown up, now.”

From the pocket of his waistcoat Professor Moorhouse produces a long golden pocket watch on a link chain, pressing a button on the side of the watch, the 3D image of a young woman with messy blonde hair suddenly appears, causing Sam to jump back a little in surprise.

The girl smiles, and waves repeating the action over and over again.

Sam wouldn’t put François Moorhouse much past the age of twenty.

The Professor stares mournfully at the image of his daughter, caught in a happier moment.

"She’s very lovely.”

Professor Moorhouse appears to be quite gone, lost somewhere out of Sam’s reach, staring at the face of his daughter.

"It was my wife’s idea of a joke, you see my name is Emile, and my wife’s name was Delphine, she thought François would be a humorous name for our daughter .”

It takes Sam a minute to get the joke D,E,F, she’s not really sure how funny it is, but she plays along for the sake of Professor Moorhouse.

"That’s very funny.”


	14. Sam and The Doctor

The sound of a woman’s scream splits the air.

Sam and Professor Moorhouse both leap to their feet in fright, as a shrieking blur of white rushes past them.

The woman is still screaming as she bolts down the train’s long corridor.

"I’ll go after her.”

Perkins volunteers, sweat gleaming over his flushed looking face.

Sam’s gaze shifts from Perkins, as the engineer shoulders his way out of the compartment, she stares at Malcolm, not Malcolm The Doctor.

That’s strange, thinking of Malcolm as anyone other than himself.

Sam knows the face of her husband so well, that she can clearly read the concern that’s written over his features.

There eyes meet, and Sam expects, no hopes for that look of deep concern lift, that he’ll be reassured by the sight of her, the way he always is.

That doesn’t happen, at the sight of her, The Doctor’s brown knits into a deeper crease.

It shouldn’t hurt, after all Sam doesn’t know him, but he is wearing Malcolm’s face and…and…

She can’t articulate herself properly; it’s all too much to put into something as simple as words.

Actions then.

Sam leaves Professor Moorhouse’s side, and makes her way towards The Doctor.

She swallows thickly as she comes to a halt in front of him.

"I think we need to talk.”

Sam announces.

The Doctor’s only reply is a curt nod.

It’s habit that causes Sam to take The Doctor’s hand in her own, as she leads him back into the luggage compartment from where the mysterious woman had appeared moments earlier.

The Doctor doesn’t exactly hold her hand back, but he doesn’t pull away either, he just lets her lead him quietly along.

Once away from Professor Moorhouse’s or any other prying ears, Sam lets go of The Doctor’s hand.

From the corner of her eye Sam sees the TARDIS, and for some strange, ridiculous reason she feels a sudden sense of relief. 

"I want you to take me home. I don’t know how I got here, if here is even real, but I want to go home.”

The Doctor doesn’t react immediately, he just continues to look at her.

Sam’s not sure he’s heard her, or maybe he just doesn’t understand, she takes a breath opens her mouth and…

"Where did you get those pyjamas?”

The Doctor’s voice cuts across everything else.

Sam glances down at her cream coloured satin pyjamas.

"I don’t know, I just woke up with them on. Does it really matter? All I want to do is go home.”

She tries very hard to keep the desperation from her voice, failing miserably, as she feels hot tears spring into the corners of her eyes at the prospect of never seeing Malcolm, Chanelle or Dean, again.

Nothing else matters now, nothing has ever mattered; Sam needs to get back to her family.

"You’re wearing Clara Oswald’s pyjamas.”

Sam’s brain stalls.

Clara Oswald, so it was the same woman, the teacher from Coal Hill school, the guest judge at the baking competition.

Sam can barely remember what Clara looks like, the only things that jump out at her about Clara are, how short the other woman had been, and the fact that Sam had really liked the red satchel she’d been wearing. 

Sam had liked the red satchel so much in fact that she’d spent a good week trying to find a similar one on Net-a-Porter to no avail.

Now Sam realises that Clara had most probably picked up her amazing red satchel on another planet.

Why is she still thinking about red satchels?

She tries to engage her brain, glancing around The Doctor, Sam sees a wide open door, the same door that she’d seen The Doctor and Perkins struggling to open, had he thought Clara Oswald was in there?

Sam tries to picture the woman who had just rushed past her; in the blur of activity she’d caught the flash of peroxide blonde hair, so not Clara Oswald, Sam recalls that the younger woman had been a brunette.

"Is your friend still missing?”

Sam enquires cautiously. 

The Doctor’s expression darkens briefly, before lifting suddenly, setting Sam off balance.

Despite his similarities to Malcolm he’s much harder to read, it’s as if he’s wearing a mask.

He wants her to talk, that much Sam can tell.

"I, I don’t know…”

She gives him what he wants, playing with her hands nervously as she speaks.

"The last thing I remember is…”

Falling asleep in a post-coital fug in Malcolm’s arms.

"Falling asleep,”

Sam eyes The Doctor nervously, a burning flush flooding her cheeks.

She clears her throat.

"NO, but before that,”

Sam starts to remember.

"Before that I fainted, I fainted because I saw a face,”

Sam’s hands brush against the sides of her face.

Her face.

She forgets about The Doctor, Malcolm, Chanelle, Dean, Perkins, Professor Moorhouse and even the train, all Sam can think of now is the face she’d seen reflected back at her in the darkness.

"It was my face,”

Sam frowns.

"It was my face and I was a Cyberman.”


	15. Chaos is a Ladder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter this time, set during the Battle of Canary Warf with the AlternativeSam.  
> I just had to use a quote from my favourite GoT speeches, I think it fits well...
> 
> Also, I'm just leaving this here https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/

A sudden noise causes Sam to terminate the call to her sister Bex.

As she hits to cancel button with her shaking thumb, Sam hears the sound of her daughter Sophia’s, anxious wail cut short.

They are all going to die.

Sam feels sick to her stomach.

Unable to stand with the weight of the realisation she sinks down onto her knees, her cut and bleeding skin making contact with the dusty metal of the lifts roof.

Focus.

Sam tries to regain some composure through her tears.

It’s not fair.

She doesn’t want to die, she doesn’t want to leave Sophia an orphan.

Who will look after her daughter?

Suddenly Sam finds herself blaming Malcolm, as if all of this is somehow his fault.

If he’d never died, then Sam wouldn’t be here now.

This wasn’t the plan.

Another noise sends a chill down Sam’s spine and forces her to look up, the door to the lifts above her is rattling hard, as if someone is attempting to force it open.

Voices, raised voices, she can hear people.

Sam forces herself back up onto her feet, raising one hand above her head, she just about to call out, when she hears the word EXTERMINATE.

Her own voice dies in her throat.

The solid metal of the lift doors glow, and whoever had been on the other side fighting to get into the lift shaft stops.

Sam is alone, again.   
She tries to think, anything to stop herself from screaming in the face of so much unimaginable horror.

Options, what are her options? 

Sam could climb back into the lift.

Two things put her off that idea, first the thought of having to share a lift with Ollie Reeder’s dead body.

While she’d never exactly liked him, and she knew what Malcolm had thought of him, or more to the point what he hadn’t thought of him, Ollie had risked his own life to safe her’s.

Essentially the first selfless act of his life had got Ollie Reeder killed, there’s an irony there.

Sam also doubts that she’d make it a single floor before she is discovered.

What can’t go down, must go up.

Luckily there’s a sturdy looking ladder that appears to run the whole way up the lift shaft from top to bottom.

Unluckily there’s somewhat of a gap between the rungs closest to Sam and the lip of the lift.

She’ll have to jump across, and if she misjudges her leap or her hold slips, she’ll plunge to her doom.

Simple, really. 

Attempting to dry her sweaty hands against her skirt, Sam tries to plan out the next couple of moments of her life.

Just make it to the ladder, busk it from there.

It’s what Malcolm would do.

Really?

Really, Malcolm would leap across the groaning chasm of a lift shaft onto a ladder.

Okay, so Malcolm wouldn’t ordinarily do that, but Sam is sure he would have done that for her, for Sophia. 

Malcolm’s not dead, he’s waiting for Sam, he’s waiting for Sam at home with their daughter, she has to do this, she has to get back to them, BOTH of them.

Sam takes a deep breath, and them she jumps.  
Suspended for a moment in mid air, she’s not sure if she’s calculated it right, blindly Sam reaches out for something, anything to stop her from falling.

A metal rail slips between her fingers, Sam claps it tightly, pressing the weight of her body hard against the ladder to stop herself from falling backwards.

Her heart is hammering inside her chest.

Sam made it, she survived the jump.

Holding on tight, she chances a glance beneath her, a faint orange glow flickers at the bottom of the shaft.

Fire, a big fire from the looks of it, the smoke is just starting to curl towards her and catch in her lungs.

Can’t go down.

Sam glances up.

Her head spins, the ladder seems to stretch on forever, she’ll never be able to climb so far.

She has to try.

One rung after the other, that’s all it is, that’s all it’s ever been.

Sam doesn’t want to die.

She has to do this.

Painfully slowly she raises one hand above her head, her legs trembling fingers growing sweaty and tight, until she finds the next rung.

Sam’s good a climbing, it’s fun, it’s easy, she MUST do this.

She starts to climb taking it slowly one rung at a time, into her confidence grows and she finds herself moving faster.

But what’s she climbing towards, what’s waiting for her at the top?

Sam can’t thinking about that, all that is before her is the climb.

Chaos is a ladder.


	16. Lying There Dying in Each Others Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The line about besting Christ, comes from the book/audiobook Alan Partridge, I Partridge.

Sam has no idea how long she’s been climbing.

Time doesn’t exist in the hot, choking darkness of the lift shaft.

Drenched in sweat, every muscle in her body cries out in agony.

Clenching her teeth, Sam climbs.

No-one has found her yet, she’s not sure if that is a good or a bad thing.

Sam had hoped to encounter someone else, perhaps a group of people who’d made it to the same safety of the lift shaft, but there’s no-one.

She’s all alone.

She might be the only living person left in the building.

Sam tries not to think about her daughter Sophia or her own twin sister Bex, what might be happening to them on the outside.

They will be alright.

Sam’s legs begin to wobble as she attempts the next foothold.

If she doesn’t stop soon she won’t make it any further.

Cool air shifts around her.

Sam’s been trying to block out the pain in her arms and legs for so long, that she barely notices the change in current around her.

Glancing up, she sees a blue shaft of daylight; the doors just above her are open.

Sam pauses for a moment, her arms and legs shaking as she holds herself fast.

Is this what she had been waiting for, a way out of the lift shaft?

But she had been safe here; does she really want to give that up, come out of her hiding place?

Sam can’t climb forever, and after all, what had she been climbing all this way for, if it hadn’t been to find someway to escape?

She pulls herself up the last couple of rungs, hauling her tired body up onto the lip of the space between the floor, and the drop of the lift shaft.

Panting hard, Sam drags herself through the door, sweat streaming over her face, stinging her eyes.  
She doesn’t even look, doesn’t check to see if she’s safe, she doesn’t have the energy, the climb has stripped her, sapped her.

Sam takes large gulps of sweet air conditioned air.

She sits, her legs folded awkwardly underneath her, her left knee bleeding badly.

How long does she sit there? 

It doesn’t matter, no-one finds her, no-one comes.

Slowly she finds some new reserve of strength, her batteries recharge, and the world comes back to her.

She takes it all in, the feel of the carpet beneath her, the stark emptiness of the corridor, and glass, smashed glass all around her, blood.

People have died here.

Sam forces herself up onto her feet; her legs don’t feel like her own, she feels dethatched from them, as she wobbles across the floor.

Ducking her head, Sam steps through what had once been a glass door, the debris crunches under her feet.

The room she walks into is a wind blasted scene of horror.

No a single stick of office furniture is recognisable, everything is just wreckage, and there’s more blood, large pools swim towards her.

It’s not safe here, she needs to hide again, get out of the way.

Sam turns her back on the room, keen to make her escape, when a sound suddenly catches her off guard.

She’s lived for what seems like a long time, with only her own heavy breathing and the rhythm of her heart, that this noise interrupts jars.

She hears it again, a groan, above the sirens and the wind, Sam hears the sound of another person’s groan. 

Without pausing to think Sam dashes in the direction of the noise, and under a bank of what use to be computers, she sees a pair of legs.

"It’s alright, I’m here, I’m going to help you. I’m going to get you out.”

Sam tells the legs, as she immediately begins lifting off the debris.

A louder groan, and then…

"JAMIE”

Out of all the faces Sam had expected to reveal, Jamie is the last one she would have thought of.

They’d been separated; the three of them, Jamie had been taken by one of Yvonne Hardman’s assistances on a tour of the upper offices, while Sam and Ollie had been forced to stay on a lower floor. 

Sam feels a stab of guilt, realising that until this moment she’s completely forgotten that Jamie was with them.

"What took ye so long lass?”

She smiles, and half laughs.

Jamie’s in a bad way, trying to keep the look of dismay from her face, Sam realises that the pool of blood she’d encountered moments before belongs to him.

"Ollie’s dead.”

She hears herself saying.

"Good.”

Jamie announces emphatically.

"I’m glad I’ve outlived that skid mark.”

Jamie’s face is grey.

Without saying anything, they’ve both reached the same conclusion that Jamie is no longer for this world, than Ollie was.

Jamie’s gaze turns sad as he stares up at her, trembling, he takes her hand in his own, and their sweaty palms meet.

"At least, I’ve bested Christ.”

He laughs painfully.

Sam’s in an utter state of shock, this just can’t be happening.

Jamie grips her hand tightly.

"I’m sorry things have been so fucking weird between us.”

Sam shakes her head numbly, but Jamie just gives her a wild eyed stare and she lets him continue.

"I thought I was in love with ye lass.”

Sam knows this.

"I’ve been laying here, and all I’ve been able to think about is Cat and the kids. I’ve fucked everything up.”

For a minute Sam thinks Jamie might cry, she’s not sure she could watch Jamie in tears as he dies, but he regains control of himself.

He sniffs hard.

"She’s a mad bitch, but I love her.”

"I know that Jamie. And, Cat knows it too.”

Jamie’s jaw clenches.

The pair sit in silence, holding on to one another.

"I still fancy, ye like mad, though.”

He teases her with a wink, and Sam can’t stop herself from crying.

"Stop that. Stop that now, wee lass. The last thing I want to see is ye’re snot covered face.”

"I can’t believe you want to banter now.”

Sam grins down at Jamie, as she wipes her tears away with her free hand.

"That’s not bantering, this is bantering...”

Jamie then goes on to say something that is completely inappropriate for print, but which has Sam actually laughing.

When her laughter stops, Sam feels Jamie shudder.

Sam leans forward and kisses him, when there lips part, she silently tucks herself into the side of Jamie’s body as he dies next to her.


	17. You Will Be Upgraded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features sucidal intentions...so please don't read if that triggers anything.
> 
> The Kel Maleh Rachamim-is the prayer for the soul of the departed.

Jamie’s dead.

Sam feels numb.

She’s still lying against him, half cuddled into his side.

Sam can’t bring herself to look at his face, so instead she stares up at the ceiling hanging over them, those white ceiling tiles, so bland, the uniform of every office.

She never wanted to work in an office, Sam had always wanted to be a writer, or an adventurer, she’d ended up a PA.

It was a perfectly good job, and through it she’d met Malcolm, but even so, Sam can’t shake the idea that’s she’s really wasted her life, all the talented she had.

How can she be so full of self pity when Jamie has just died?

Sam wipes the tears away from her eyes, and pulls her battered aching body up.

She takes Jamie’s strangely cold hand in her own; she still can’t look at his face.

Jamie is the most Catholic person Sam has ever met, and despite the fact that he’d never finished training to become a priest, she knows he still believes, in the way that Malcolm never did.

So Sam knows she should say something religious, just in case there’s some part of Jamie still alive, listening somewhere.

He’d want her to do that.

Sam grew up in one of those small, pretty villages in Kent.

Sam’s parents had been hippies, when such things had actually meant something, and they’d lived in ‘Swinging London’ when it had actually swung.

But, like the rest of the psychedelic flower children they’d settled down, moving to the countryside when Sam and her twin sister Bex were born.

Other than being non-identical twins, which for some reason most of the kids at school could never get their collective heads around, Sam and her sister Bex had stood out as the only Jewish and the only Catholic girls in their small village Primary school, things had gotten slightly more cosmopolitan at Secondary school.

It wasn’t a conscious choice, Sam didn’t wake up one day and decide to favour her Mum’s religion over her Dad’s, in fact she flip flopped between the two for a long time.

However, in truth, Sam hasn’t believed in any sort of God, Jewish, Catholic, or any other for a long time.

But this isn’t about her.

She searches her numb brain trying to remember any of the prayers or words she’d learned as a child, the only thing that comes to her is the Kel Maleh Rachamim.

Sam hesitates for a moment, squeezing Jamie’s hand tightly, as if trying to warm some life back into him.

She starts to say the Kel Maleh Rachamim, she hopes Jamie doesn’t mind.

Sam didn’t go to Malcolm’s memorial services, she sent Bex with Sophia in her stead.

While Malcolm’s Mother, and his sister Cat had been giving their eulogies, what a wonderful son/brother Malcolm was, Sam had been in a bar, the one she knew Malcolm liked, the one he’d taken her to when he’d had the time.

She’d sat up at the bar, wearing a particularly revealing LBD and drunk glass after glass of extremely expensive whiskey.

Sam didn’t even like whiskey.

Jamie had come and found her, before Sam had made a fool of herself.

When she’d heard Jamie behind her, Sam had thought just for a minute, for the briefest of moments, that it was Malcolm, that somehow he’d come back.

It had been Jamie.

The pair had danced, and Sam had cried on Jamie’s shoulder.

She’d never stopped crying on Jamie’s shoulder.

The Kel Maleh Rachamim ends, and Sam shakily pulls her mobile from her pocket.

This time Bex answers after only one ring, it’s so good to hear her sister’s voice.

"Sam, where are you?”

Bex exclaims in panic.

Sam tries to keep her voice steady.

"I’m coming home.”

As the words leave her mouth Sam hears movement in the corridor, a heavy mechanical stomping that tells her no human rescue party has come to her aid.

She’s been found.

Keeping the phone pressed against her ear with a hunch in her shoulder, Sam carefully holds Jamie’s arms against his chest, she pauses on the point of closing his eyes, but she still can’t look into his face.

"We’re okay, Sophia and I, a little cold. We’re in the cellar like you said. Be careful out there, they seem to be fighting each other more now, but you don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”

Carefully Sam gets up onto her feet, cautiously she makes her way to one of the long smashed windows, the closer she gets the more she is buffeted by the wind.

There are things she should say, things that she should tell Bex about Malcolm for Sophia, things that can only come from her, but, but even now at the very last minute Sam doesn’t want to give up.

Bracing herself against the window frame, Sam stares out onto the burning city beneath her, fires and chaos, her gaze lifts up into the sky, the sun is shining and it’s a beautiful pale blue.

"I’m coming home.”

Sam repeats herself.

She launches herself forward ready to pitch out of the window, unafraid, when she comes to a juddering halt.

Sam phone flies out of her hand, and she watches it tumble suddenly to earth.

She tries to follow it, but Sam is held fast.

Suddenly she’s pulled back into the building.

Sam shrieks in horror as the silver robot tells her. 

"You are strong. You are intelligent. You will be upgraded.”


	18. Mr Cassidy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara's POV and Malcolm has suddenly gone very, very Scottish.

Day One.

Clara knows she needs to get out of Malcolm and Sam’s house, how is it going to look if they suddenly come home and find a teacher they once met at a baking competition, dressed as a 1920’s flapper sitting on their sofa?

Things like that are generally considered to be pretty weird, by normal people standards, anyway?

Normal people standards, Clara slaps her palm against her forehead, she sounds just like The Doctor.

How long has that been going on for?

When did the divide grow up between Clara and The Doctor, and everyone else? 

The day they met, probably?

It was one of the things that had annoyed Danny, he’d thought everyone was ordinary and special all at the same time, but Clara doesn’t agree, most people are boring; she’d been boring before The Doctor.

She’d been bumbling through her life, with no hope or direction, now she went everywhere at once, and her life meant something.

Clara glances up at the ceiling above her head, as if trying to stare right through it, and up into the sky, she wonders if The Doctor has missed her yet?

Is he looking for her right now?

There had been a mystery, and they were on an Agatha Christie themed train in space, he’s probably not looking for her.

So she’ll surprise him, she’ll save herself.

Okay, but how, how is she going to launch herself back into space from Terry’s World?

Martha Jones-Smith.

It comes to her in a flash.

Martha Jones-Smith, head of Torchwood and the Terry’s World version of one of The Doctor’s former travelling buddies.

A plan begins to form in Clara’s mind, well semi form.

She marches with purpose over to Malcolm and Sam’s telephone, and picks up the handset; she’s on the point of dialling Martha’s mobile number when she hears someone else’s voice on the line.  
Laughing, two women are laughing and chatting.

Clara recognises one of the voices as Sam’s.

Carefully Clara places the phone back in the receiver, stepping away back into the centre of the room.

She’s now hyper aware of every move that she makes, because Sam is clearly in the house somewhere talking to one of her friends.

All Clara needs to do now, is leave as fast as she possibly can.

The last thing she wants is the police being called, she’s a teacher she can’t have a criminal record.

No, just get out, get out now, get out quickly and a quietly as possible.

Clara crosses the room, sensitive of every click her heels make across the polished floorboards.

Out in the hallway Clara can see the safety of the doorway in front of her, its so close all she has to do is make a run for it, and she’d be out of the house before Sam notices.

She can do this, Clara reminds herself, before glancing over her shoulder and taking a cautious glance over her shoulder and up the stairs behind her.

Sam’s not suddenly standing there.

Clara moves forward inching towards the front door, with her hand out stretched reaching towards the lock.

But before her fingers even graze the metal, she’s pushed back, as the front door bursts suddenly open, retreating, Clara heads back into the living room, ducking behind the back of the sofa to hide herself.

Clara Oswin Oswald is literally hiding behind a sofa. 

"No, I wannae, I wannae do it properly.”

Clara’s ears prick up at the sound of a very familiar Scottish brogue. 

The Doctor, he’s found her, Clara wants to leap up from behind the sofa and shout surprise, but then his voice is joined by that of Sam’s, and Clara knows it’s best to stay where she is, for now at least.

"Properly?”

Clara hears Sam giggling.

"Aye, ye’re Mrs Tucker now, and I’m gonae drag you over the threshold, like all the Mrs Tuckers before, ye.”

"What, by my hair?”

Clara cringes, because she’s pretty sure she can hear the unmistakable sound of kissing, actual kissing.

She remembers what Malcolm and Sam had been like at the bake off IN PUBLIC, and inwardly groans.

"No, that’s for later, and only if ye’re very, very good.”

Oh God, Clara laments from her prison behind the sofa.

"Alright well, since this is the last time you’ll ever get to have your own way, you may carry me across the threshold, Mr Cassidy.”

There's more giggling and the sound of thumbling about, and then...

"Welcome home Mrs Tucker.”

In the hall the burgular alarm suddenly goes off.


	19. Hiding Behind the Sofa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Clara weirdness...
> 
> Also if you haven't seen it before, please check out my new blog...
> 
> https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/
> 
> The line about puppies is lifted from my favourite scene in Fresh Meat.

Day Five.

"So, you’ve never seen it before?”

Sam asks excitedly.

"No, I’ve never seen it before.”

Chanelle replies as she drags one of the sofa cushions across her lap, her fingers playing with one of the teal coloured tassels. 

Sam has her knees folded up underneath her, remote control in hand.

"And, you’re sure you want to watch it now, we could go all the way back to the beginning, instead.”

Sam suddenly sounds like some crazed super-fan.

Chanelle flashes her some serious side eye.

"It’s just, I know how good the show used to be, and this is a reboot, and…”

"Just turn the fucking telly on, woman.”

Malcolm’s voice carries from some unseen place, probably the kitchen.

Sam’s face visibly blanches, while Chanelle buries her giggle in the cushion.

Never the less the TV is switched on and the titles for the Gilmore Girls-A year in the life suddenly appear on the screen curtsy of Netflix.

Clara sits in an arm chair, half watching the telly, half watching Sam and Chanelle.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been here, the days are so hard to calculate, time is very fast and very slow in Malcolm and Sam’s house.

Clara’s not in ‘Terry’s World’, she’s not in any world, she’s existing in some parallel universe that completely revolves around Sam Cassidy-Tucker.

At first Clara had thought the world belonged to Malcolm and Sam, but then she’d wandered up into the loft one day, and found the boxes.

Boxes filled with things like Sam and Bex’s first day of school, Sam learns to ride-insert bike or horse, Sam sets her fringe on fire with the aid of the candles of her eight birthday cake, first family trip abroad.

Some of the boxes Clara climbed into, like the one labelled Dumped at the Disco.

Dumped at the Disco featured a weeping teenage version of Sam, and a red haired girl Clara now recognised as Sam’s non-identical twin sister Bex.

Sam cried into her oh-so 90’s party dress, while Bex has tried to cheer her up playing The Smith’s Charming Man, while dancing around like a lunatic in her own, very 90’s party dress.

"Imagine fat little puppies, rolling off tables and never hurting themselves.”

Bex had giggled, and Sam had wailed.

Clara had soon grown tired of that box.

It wasn’t just boxes, there were doors as well.

For a mid-Victorian terraced house, Malcolm and Sam’s home seems to possess hundreds of rooms.

There’s a corridor full of doors simply with the names of various boys written on them.

The corridor begins with a door literally dust covered and swathed in cobwebs, the name in a faded glittery pen reads Ian.

After Ian’s door, there are three more, all with identical Mike/Mick/Mark written over them in faded pen, as if the writer can’t quite remember the names, Lucy’s door is next.

Above Lucy’s door is the word ‘Experiment’, Clara has one or two of those herself.

After Sam’s best friend Lucy, comes the name Ed.

Ed’s door is covered in yellow police tape, and the word WARNING written all over it, and DO NOT CROSS LINE.

Clara had crossed the line, and pushed this door open, once, just a crack, and she’d been met with the sound of someone crying bitter tears on the other side.

She hadn’t opened it, again. 

The next door belongs to someone called Adam, his door is the personification of the thought bland.

The final door in the corridor belongs to Malcolm, and it’s the exact opposite to Adam’s.

For a start it’s bright, fire engine red, with love hearts craved all over it, and fireworks spinning from the sides of it at the oddest of moments, it’s quite a hazard, but Clara likes it, she likes how unashamedly in-love Sam is, Clara misses feeling like that.

Clara catches herself off balance, wondering one day, how The Doctor’s door in her own corridor, would compare to Danny’s.

So, Clara is trapped in a universe made from Sam Cassidy-Tucker’s memories.

In the beginning Clara had tried to escape, but nothing in the world exists outside the confines of the garden gate, and she’d soon found herself blinked back inside the house.

To stop herself from going mad, or madder, Clara has started to try and live as normally as possible.

She eats with Sam and Malcolm, she tries to sleep when night comes, and in the hours between eating and sleeping, she tries to fill the time the best way she can.

How has this happened, and where is The Doctor, are questions Clara has stopped asking.

She has become a ghost, no-one can see her, not Sam or Malcolm or the children Chanelle and Dean, nor any of the other visitors who pop-up in the house on a regular basis.

Because Sam has an active and fun social life, something Clara lacks, aside from The Doctor, and do they actually have fun…

The hardest thing is Malcolm, how closely he resembles The Doctor, living with him normally day after day, watching him with Sam it’s, well it’s made Clara realise something she’s been trying to bury since long before Danny died.

It hurts because she knows she might never see The Doctor, again.

And Clara’s just not ready; she’s not ready to NEVER see The Doctor.

Clara is still sitting in the armchair long after Sam and Chanelle have disappeared from the sofa.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she opens her eyes the living room is cold, and dark, and so very unlike usual.

Clara shivers in her unsuitable flapper dress.

In the corridor beyond the living room Clara hears movement, which is nothing new, but if that’s the case why is every single hair on the back of her neck suddenly standing to attention.

Clara bolts up from the armchair, standing in the middle of the living room, she strains her eyes to try and see into the darkness beyond.

"Hello.”

Despite knowing that no-one can hear her, Clara calls out anyway.

"Hello, Clara Oswald.”

Comes the reply, that makes Clara almost shed her own skin.


	20. The Doctor is in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy.

Clara masters her own fear, or at least she tries to.

She takes one faltering step forward, then she pauses recalling what The Doctor always says about being the most important person in any integration room, she can do this.

Clara sticks out her chin proudly and marches into the hallway.

Sam Cassidy-Tucker is sitting on the stairs, her chin cupped in her hands.

Clara ignores her, searching for the voice that had called her name.

It had been her name.

Knowing that the phantom Sam will never be able to hear her, Clara calls out.

"Hello.”

She clings desperately to the fact that there had been a second voice, if she loses that, then she might as well face facts that she is actually going mad.

Just when Clara is on the point of losing all her hope, she hears a reply.

"Hello, Clara.”

Clara spins on her heels to confront the voice, but there’s only Sam still sitting on the stairs.

Her breath begins to leave her body in harsh sounding pants, as fear begins to get the better of her.

"W-who’s there, where are you?”

Clara jumps as she feels the wall of the hallways suddenly against her back.

She knows fear, she’s felt it before so many, many times, faced it down, laughed at it, tried to be brave, but this is different, the fear flooding through her veins now, is unlike anything Clara has experienced before.

She tries to think, attempts to spy some way out of her predicament, but the weight of the fear is just too much, it feels as if the whole room, the entire house is pressing down on her.

The only part of Clara’s body that seems to be capable of movement now are her eyes.

Eyes bulging in terror, Clara glances in the direction of the stairs and at Sam who is looking straight back at her.

"Hello, Clara.”  
Sam repeats from the stairs.

Clara opens her mouth to speak, but no words leave her body.

She can’t move, she can’t speak, all she can do is stare and listen.

Every fibre of Clara’s body suddenly begins to scream.

"I apologies for the inconvenience, there’s been a terrible mistake, I’m afraid.”

Clara watches as Sam stands up, at pats herself down.

Sam moves towards her, Clara attempts to shrink away, but her body is firmly out of her control.

"Never trust a Dalek.”

Sam scoffs.

Now face to face, Sam reaches out her hand resting it lightly against Clara’s cheek.

Where Clara had expected to feel the warmth of a human hand, her skin is chilled by unforgiving metal.

"But, you’d know more about that, than I.”

Sam muses.

"I am sorry you’ve been brought here. None of this was meant for you, it was an aesthetic crafted from the memories of Sam Cassidy-Tucker, and only she could fully enjoy this experience and appreciate this experience. It was meant as a kindness, but now I see how pointless it all is.”

Aesthetic.

Her body might have failed her, but Clara’s brain is still working.

Aesthetic is the reason why her body has stopped working.

The Cassidy-Tucker house folds in on itself and fades around Clara, her islands of safety have gone.

White hot light stings her eyes, and she struggles to take in her new environment.

A curved ceiling above her, and in the highly polished reflection of the metal Clara can see herself, her reflection, she’s strapped down on a table.

All she can do is stare, and stare, and stare, no scream comes.

The sight of herself so helpless, so pathetic, is blocked as a face looms over her, a metal face.

A Cyberman’s face.

"Do not be afraid Clara Oswald, no harm will come to you.”

The Cyberman tells her.

"The plan has been adjusted, now that you are here. The Doctor will come. The Doctor will bring Sam with him. The Doctor will exchange you for Sam.”

He will never do that, Clara thinks.

"Oh yes, he will.”

The Cyberman replies as if reading Clara’s mind.

You don’t know the first thing about The Doctor if you think he’d had Sam, or anyone else over to you, just like that, even for me.

The Cyberman’s face hovers even closer to Clara’s own.

"He will do it, Clara Oswald.”

The Cyberman tells her.

"The Doctor will do it, because The Doctor is in love with Clara Oswald.”


	21. Plot What Plot

Sam groans.

"Look she’s, she’s waking up.”

An unfamiliar female voice exclaims, in a high, breathy, excitable pitch.

The darkness around Sam slowly begins to fade into a faint red, and she realises groggily that her eyes are closed.

Groaning again, and her head pounding so hard she feels as if any moment it might explode, Sam’s eyes flutter open.

The light hurts, but gradually she becomes accustomed.

Two faces loom over her, concern etched into their features.

One she recognises as Perkins, the other a woman with wide staring eyes and peroxide blonde hair, Sam doesn’t know, but she imagines it was the same woman who had run past her earlier.

The same woman.

Sam stomach suddenly drops.

So, this is actually happening then, she’s on a train with The Tardis and Doctor Who, who is real, and not just her husband’s favourite television show.

Also, double bonus The Doctor looks like Malcolm.

Oh God, it’s so wrong on so many levels.

Sam drags herself into a half sitting position, she’s sprawled out on a bed, and she guesses it’s probably the one back in her compartment.

"Be careful Miss, you’ve been unconscious for a long time.”

Perkins warns her.

Sam flashes him a quick, tired smile, as she settles her shoulders into the comfort of the pillows at her back.

A heavy silence seems to fill the sleeping compartment, The Doctor hasn’t said anything yet, and although Sam can’t seem him, she knows he’s watching her.

Perkins moves away from the edge of Sam’s sick bed, and she can tell he’s off to speak with The Doctor.

The edgy peroxide blonde continues to stare down at her, clutching what appears to be a damp flannel between her nervous, twitching fingers.

"Thank you, for taking care of me.”

Sam croaks weakly.

As if that was the signal the woman had been waiting for, she immediately sits down on the edge of the bed next to Sam.

"I’m Maisie. Maisie Pitt.”

Maisie instantly introduces herself.

Sam’s not quite sure why, but something in her manner reminds her a little of Chanelle’s bestfriend Artemisia Drake.

Chanelle.

Sam steals herself against thoughts of her adopted daughter, she’d made a promise and she’s determined to keep it, somehow she will get home, she will get back.

As if that thought was the trigger, Sam suddenly remembers…

"She tried to take me, again.”

Sam tells The Doctor who she still can’t see, because Maisie is blocking the view.

"I know.”

The Doctor replies, hearing Malcolm’s voice, or something so close to it, puts Sam immediately at some ease.

The Doctor says something to Perkins, Sam strains to hear, but she can’t quite make it out.

"Ah, Miss Pitt, the Doctor has suggested we find something else for Mrs Cassidy-Tucker to wear, you wouldn’t perhaps have anything suitable.”

Maisie leaps off the bed with a sudden squeal of delight.

"Of course. Of course. Why we are around the same size, I have a lovely backless cocktail dress, Mama, I mean my Grandmother never lets me wear, it would look lovely on you.”

Maisie says this all directly into Sam’s face.

Maisie’s features freeze, fear grips her.

"But what about the, the thing, the thing that killed Mama, it stole that poor girl, she was standing right next to me, and then, then she was gone. I don’t want to be alone.”

Perkins steps in next to Maisie, and the peroxide blonde sees him as if for the first time.

"I’ll go with you, Miss Pitt.”

Maisie’s cheeks redden a little, her voice all a flutter.

"Oh yes well, that would be, that would be very nice, lovely.”

Without further ado, Maisie grabs Perkins by the wrist and practically drags him out of the compartment, Sam could almost laugh if it wasn’t for how ill she feels, or the way The Doctor is looking at her.

She can see him now, and Sam knows the expression he is wearing oh so well, she’s seen it on Malcolm’s face so many times before, and she knows what it means.

"I think I know what’s happening, now.”  
For some reason Sam can’t bring herself to look at The Doctor while she speaks, so instead she addresses the rich, pale white satin of the sheet that is draped over her.

The Doctor doesn’t respond, clearly he wants to hear more.

Sam focuses on the white satin as she speaks, the glossy material taking on something of a moonscape appearance around her.

Her imagination is running wild.

"I think I saw inside her mind,”

Sam shudders at the memory of so much pain.

"We’re the same, you see, and I saw, I saw what happened to her. She’s a, I can’t believe, I’m actually saying this,”

Sam takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

"Doctor she’s a Cyberman. The other me, the other version of Sam, she’s a Cyberman, and she wants me, she’s been trying to take me off this train ever since I boarded. And she’s got Clara, I saw Clara.”

At the mention of Clara’s name, The Doctor shifts in his seat.

"I was an easy error to make; you’re roughly the same age,”

"I’m 38.”

Sam scoffs. 

"You have the same type of hair.”

The Doctor continues with a quirk of one of his attack brows.

"You all look the same to a Cyberman, just parts for the machine. They took Clara because they thought she was you, and they’ll keep trying to rectify their mistake until they are successful”

It’s as if he doesn’t care at all, about her, about Clara even.

Cold, so unlike Malcolm.

Sam shivers, again.

"Doctor, why do they want me.”

He glowers back at her.

Sam knows the answer, she’d just have preferred to hear it from him.

She knows that the reason the other Sam wants her so badly is because she wants to BE her.


	22. Miss Maisie Pitt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Maisie bond.  
> Bonus Perkins and chocolate coloured diamonds.

Sam blinks.

Sam blinks as she stares out into the wide open, terrifying majesty of space.

Nothing in her life has prepared her to witness anything like this.

It’s so vast, so extraordinary, so vivid and beautiful.

Sam had always imagined the colours of space to be black and silver, but there gold, lilac, bright crimson, green, and burning yellow.

The colours dart and sway, a kaleidoscope of life, beauty beyond compare, and it’s been here all the time just above the horizon of the sky.

"It’s quite a nice view.”

Maisie’s voice reminds Sam to breath.

"Mama, requested a compartments with the best views. She always does, whenever we travel, she always likes a good,”

The hitch in Maisie’s voice causes Sam to turn in the direction of the peroxide blonde, who is standing in the middle of the room a utterly miserable expression frozen over her features, as she clutches a piece of cream silk against her chest.

"Were you very close?”

Sam asks tentatively.

Startled, Maisie glances at her with a heavy frown.

"No, never. We never had that sort of relationship, I’m not sure Mama, ever had that sort of relationship with anyone.”

That’s sad, Sam thinks to herself, but she says.

"Would you like to sit down?”

Sam gestures to the large, luxuriously carved bed, which is around twice the size of her own, and covered in clutter; Maisie’s room resembles an explosion in a clothes factory.

Mutely Maisie sits down on the edge of the bed, ignoring the pile of clothes beneath her.

"My Grandmother, she’s all I’ve ever had you see, after my parents died, she, she, well she never looked after me exactly, but she bought me things, and paid for my schooling, and, and, well she’s the only family I have, now she’s gone I’m alone for the first time in my life.”

Sam sits down next to Maisie.

"And that scares you?”

Maisie nods.

"Mama always said I have a habit of attracting gold diggers, she’s right of course, I never had a boyfriend, or a friend for that matter, who didn’t want me for my money, I wonder how I’ll get by without her?”

In the very same breath Maisie adds.

"Do you think Mr Perkins is married?”

Sam hadn’t really thought about it, but somehow talking to Maisie and considering Perkins’ martial status seem to be far more entertaining that dwelling on her own plight.

"Only I noticed he wasn’t wearing a ring, but perhaps he can’t because of the engines, or it could be company policy, what do you think?”

Sam notices how Maisie’s eyes flit briefly to her own engagement ring, which happens to be an extremely large, ostentatious chocolate coloured diamond, surrounded by a cluster of little white diamonds, Malcolm had gone over the top in his choice, and his budget, and Sam utterly adores it.

She turns the ring on her finger with her thumb, thinking of Malcolm.

"Why don’t you ask him?”

Maisie eyes grow suddenly wide at the suggestion; she splutters and stutters at the thought. 

"I’m not sure what planet you’re from, but on Sto, we do not ask members of the opposite sex, their martial status.”

Sto, the word almost slips by without Sam noticing, but…

"Sto, wait, what’s Sto?”

Maisie’s eyes inflate.

"Sto. I’m from Sto, everyone on this train is from Sto. Aren’t you from Sto?”

Sam shakes her head, and Maisie draws back from her in horror.

"You mean you’re an alien? I have an alien in my room?”

Maisie giggles excitedly, clapping her hands together.

Sam has never thought of being an alien before, in the context of aliens, it was something she always considered as invading Earth, rather than casually sitting on a train in space.

"I’m from Earth.”

"Earth.”

Maisie leaps up from the bed, shrieking with sudden joy at the word.

At the sound of Maisie’s shrieking, Perkins bolts breathlessly into the room.

"Miss Pitt, Sam.”

He gasps.

"She’s an alien, from Earth.”

Maisie points excitedly at Sam. 

"Earth, really, I did wonder about the phone.”

Perkins is distracted by the idea.

Joining Maisie, the pair stare down at Sam, who realises glancing right back at them, that’s she looking at two aliens, and neither of them are green.

Perkins shakes his head, before addressing Sam.

"The Doctor, he sent me to fetch you.”

He gives Maisie a quick look, adding.

"Both of you.”

Sam can’t help but smirk at this.


	23. The Dog Headed People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning-Someone dies.

"Are you really from Earth?”

Perkins asks with interest, as he falls into pace next to Sam.

Sam has to think about her answer for a good minute, for some reason the word yes, falls completely out of her vocabulary.

Perhaps yes disappears, because Sam’s brain can’t quite compute, another country yes, if Perkins had asked her if she was from London, she would have had no problem in answering, but Earth, she can’t cope with the concept of there being anywhere else to come from. 

Maisie drifts of ahead of them, wearing the backless gown she’d previously offered to Sam.

Sam has made do with Clara’s satin pyjama bottoms, with one of Maisie’s jumpers on top, she looks like a tramp in Cashmere.

Perkins is gazing at her eagerly.

"I am,”

She clears her throat.

"I’m from Earth, yes.”

Perkins nods, satisfied with her response.

"I’ve never met anyone from Earth before?”

He muses.

"I always thought humans were green, little green men, but you look so normal.”

Sam finds herself smiling at Perkins observation; she knows exactly what he means.

"It’s a bit like the legend of the Dog-headed people,”

Just as she says it, Sam suddenly wonders if Perkins will even know what a dog is.

"There are people with the heads of dogs on Earth?”

Clearly dogs exist on Sto just like they do on Earth.

"No, no they don’t, and that’s the point, in the past, on ah, on Earth, map makers use to add pictures of strange, imaginary animals to the places they’d never been and didn’t know anything about. Dog headed people were a particular favourite. But you see depending on where you lived in the world, the Dog headed people always lived somewhere else, just over those mountains, or that little island. They were always just over the horizon, until there was no horizon left, and the Dog headed people just stopped existing. I’m not sure I’m making much sense.”

Having lost her trail of thought, Sam flashes Perkins an apologetic, nervous smile.

"I understand, I think.”

Perkins kindly reassures her.

"I’m glad one of us does.”

"One of us does, what?”

Maisie pipes up, her interest, along with her jealously piqued, as the three of them suddenly stop in front of the door that leads into the dining car.

Thankfully the door opens before Sam or Perkins have to respond.

The dining car is suddenly very different to the last time Sam had seen it, the tables and chairs have been replaced with computers and other scientific instruments, and nearly everybody, excluding The Doctor, Professor Moorhouse and the Guard appear to be wearing white lab coats.

Sam moves to The Doctor’s side, he looks so much like Malcolm that being near him makes her feel something approaching normal.

He barely looks at her.

It’s not easy to know what your husband wishes you were someone else, Clara Oswald to be exact.

But The Doctor isn’t Malcolm, he’s not her husband, she has to keep that thought in her mind, that they are different people, different men. 

Lost in her own thoughts Sam barely registers as Professor Moorhouse begins to talk animatedly, pointing at something in the corner of the room, she follows the direction of his finger and sees nothing.

"Start the clock.”

The Doctor tells Perkins who obediently presses the start button on some large, alien looking stop watch.

Sam can’t concentrate between Professor Moorhouse, and The Doctor, and Maisie suddenly screaming, it’s all too much for her overloaded brain.

One thing does filter through, whatever is happening to Professor Moorhouse The Doctor can’t save him, he can’t save the poor Professor and he’s almost enjoying the fact.

 

"But you always, you always save everyone.”

Sam hears herself saying, as Professor Moorhouse begs for his life, and Maisie screams.

"Who told you that?”

The Doctor asks turning briefly away from the Professor to look at her.

In his face Sam sees that it’s not true, that he won’t save the day at the very last minute that the Professor is actually going to die.

Sam stares into Professor Moorhouse’s face, suffused with utter terror, it is the look of a man just before he dies.

"But, he has a daughter.”

"Good for him, he’s successfully managed to reproduce his genes. He’s won the genetic lottery, his mission, as nature intended it, is complete.”

Professor Moorhouse slumps suddenly to the floor.

The burn on Sam’s hand begins to throb, glancing down at the neat little bandage Professor Moorhouse had prepared for her less than an hour earlier, Sam realises that she’s just watched him die.

"You’re a monster.”

Sam whispers softly.


	24. Clara and the Glass of Water

Clara feels as if she has been holding her breath, and waiting for the worst to happen, but so far nothing actually has.

Sure, she’s strapped to a table, surrounded by Cybermen, but not of them have tried to convert her, and the way they move around her, it’s almost as if they can’t actually see her.

The only one who seems to be able to see her is their leader, every now and then, it’s silver face looms down on her, and just stares.

Clara stares right back at it, given it her most defiant look.

Converting her won’t be easy.

At some point however, despite the fear and impending doom, Clara falls asleep, she knows she falls asleep because she wakes up quiet suddenly with a snort.

Had she been snoring?

Does she snore?

Is that really the best question to be concentrating on at a time like this?

No, no, no, of course not, it’s just that, well no-one she has ever shared a bed with has complained of her snoring before, and it seems like something SHE at least would mention.

So, is she or isn’t she a snorer?

Perhaps stress makes her snore, she’s a stress snorer, is that a thing, it should really be a thing, maybe she can make it a thing, she’s babbling now…

As if the stress snoring wasn’t bad enough, Clara’s stomach begins to rumble.

All the food she’d thought she was sharing with Malcolm and Sam had never been real, she hasn’t eaten in hours, since breakfast, and Clara has no idea how many days have past, it could have been a WEEK.

A pang of hunger grips her, and Clara winches with the pain.

"You must be hungry?”

A voice asks suddenly, from a darker recess of the room.

Clara lifts her head straining to see someone, anyone, but she can’t.

She tugs at the metal cuffs, which hold her fast to the table.

"I’ve got this thing about talking to strangers.”

Clara shoots back.

A laugh flows from the corner of the room, harsh but not mechanical, Clara’s certain she’s not trading barbs with a Cyberman.

"Is that why you ran away with a madman in a box?”

Good point.

Clara attempts to blow her messy fringe out of her eyes.

"Exactly. I ran away with him, not the other way around. I was bored, so I borrowed a Timelord and a Tardis.”

A thought suddenly enters Clara’s head, is Danny the Cyberman?

The last time she’d seen him, with her own eyes, he’d been flying off up into the sky to save the planet and die all over again, she’d heard his voice when he’d been in the Netherphere, but that had been the last dregs of his consciousness, before the system had failed for good, but maybe, just maybe he’d managed to download himself into another Cyberman?

"I’m not your boyfriend, Clara.”

The voice tells her, as if reading her mind.

Clara can’t help, but think of the last time she’d heard those words, and who she’d heard them from.

Her chin trembles, as she tries to fight back the tears.

"Good, I’ve gone off Cybermen.”

She tries to be brave, forces herself not to cry.

NO-ONE CAN BEAT HER.

All they can do is kill her.

Suddenly, the vice tight grip around her wrists lifts, and Clara is freed from the table.

It takes her a few moments to process her freedom.

Rubbing one sore wrist, Clara swings herself into a sitting position, her little legs hanging over the edge of the table.

"What are you going to do to me?”

"Why do you want to know? It won’t make it any easier? Knowing something is coming, won’t make you any braver?”  
So, they are intending to convert her?

"Why don’t you show yourself to me?”

Sam Cassidy-Tucker appears from the corner of the room, between her hands she carries a tray, with what looks like a bowl of soup, a chunk of bread, and a glass of water.

Clara’s stomach rumbles, traitor.

"I’m going to feed you.”

Sam places the tray next to Clara.

The smell of the soup drives Clara’s senses wild, without waiting, she almost falls onto the food, tearing out a chunk of bread with her teeth, chewing like a manic, tasting nothing, eating everything.

Why eat the food, it could be poisoned?

Why bother to poison her now, why not do it when she’d been strapped to the table unable to fight back.

It’s a calculated risk, like so much in life, and Clara is very, very,very hungry.

After finishing with the bread in less than four bites, Clara lifts the bowl of soup to her lips and begins to drink down the bland liquid.

"You have no idea how hard it was to find that.”

"I can imagine.”

Clara says as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, having finished the contents of the bowl.

Depositing the empty bowl back on the tray, she finishes her meal with a very metallic tasting glass of water.

"My compliments to the chef.”

Sam shrugs her shoulders.

Clara glances down at the tray, searching for an implement she can use against Sam, no knife, fork or spoon was provided, but she could always smash the glass use the plates, and the tray as weapons. 

"That’s a good idea, but I wouldn’t bother.”

Sam muses.

Clara has always changed her mind about fighting her way out using a tea tray.

Information is what she needs now.

"Where am I?”

She asks, as she glances around the dimly lit room.

"At the heart of a Cyberfleet.”

The tray really would have been useless then.

Next question.

"Why do you look like that?”

The smile on Sam’s face freezes.

"Why, do you look like some middle class housewife?”

Clara was pretty sure Sam wasn’t a housewife, that she was instead a highly successful author.

"Would you like to see my other face, Clara Oswald?”

Clara nods.

The face of Sam folds in on itself, revealing the cold metal stare of a Cyberman.

"Is that better?”

Clara shakes her head.


	25. Companion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning...mention of OldWho Companions.

"Is that better, now you have seen my face?”

The Cyberman asks, in a voice that sends a shiver chasing down Clara’s spine.

Clara’s already extremely large eyes widen.

Sam’s face is back, and as soon as she sees something recognisably human, Clara feels as if she can cope, that she can pretend at least to herself, that’s she’s capable of managing this situation.

So, start managing.

"Answer, my question first.”

Sassing a Cyberman, if The Doctor could only see her now, she’s sure he would be proud.

Clara almost smiles at the thought of his reaction, but then she remembers where she is, and the smile dies on her lips.

Cyberman Sam rests her hand on her hips, and fixes Clara with a very un-robotic stare.

"You already know who I am?”

She’s right, Clara does have a hunch.

"I think you’re probably the Sam Cassidy from my Universe, the one that died during the battle of Canary Warf.”

Sam nods.

"I didn’t die, I was Cyberconverted, and sucked into the void along with all the other Cybermen, and the Daleks.”

Sam gives Clara a knowing look at the mention of Daleks, and for her part Clara has no idea why.

"How did you escape, The Void?”

Clara gives herself an internal high-five at being so good at the old integration routine.

"The Daleks came up with a plan, they escaped first, some of us were able to follow them.”

Tricky Daleks, why is she not surprised, The Doctor has always bemoaned the fact that The Daleks are able to survive just about everything he’s ever thrown at them.

"You’re using Dalek tech.”  
Clara observes motioning towards the hollow-shell Cyberman Sam is currently wearing.

"It is useful.”

Clara can’t argue with that.

"When did you stop being a Cyberman?”

"I was never a Cyberman,”

There’s an edge to Sam voice, a grit to her teeth as she speaks.

"The battle was raging new soldiers were required, I was upgraded too quickly, the job was a sloppy one.”

Clara shrinks back in horror at the thought.

"So, you can feel things?”

"I feel everything.”

But Clara knows that’s not possible, for a Cyberman to feel, to know anything about what they have become is always the end of the Cyberman, they literally exploded with the emotion.

"Okay, so let me get this straight, you’re a Cyberman with emotion, wearing a Dalek hollow-shell, and we are currently in the middle of a Cyberfleet?”

"That’s about it.”

Sam grins.

"Why, don’t the other Cybermen know?”

Clara asks in a conspiratorial whisper.

"Oh well, that’s probably something to do with the small matter of me being their Cyberplanner. Actually, I’m the Cyberplanner for this entire galactic sector.”

Cyberplanner, right, great, excellent.

"Don’t ask me how I got the job, you really don’t want to know.”

Sam’s laugh bounces off the four sides of the metal room.

Okay, so keep her talking, keep building the picture, stay alive for a few more minutes.

"You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to kidnap me to get The Doctor’s attention, believe me, he will want to see you.”

Sam’s smile fades, a frown forms across her forehead.

"This may come a some surprise, since both you and The Doctor seem to believe that entire Universes revolve around the pair of you, but I have no interest in you, or seeing him again, for that matter.”

Again.

"You’ve met The Doctor before?”

Sam crosses her arms over her chest, smirking as she does so, Clara wishes she could slap the smirk off the other woman’s face, only if she did that she’d probably break her hand, being that Sam’s face is made from metal.

"He came here demanding information about Demons Run, blew up half my fleet. Looking for another pet, Amy Pond, he had a Roman solider with him.”

Clara doesn’t know what Sam is talking about, although she is aware she’s not the first human to travel with The Doctor.

If she tries really, really hard, sometimes Clara can remember the other versions of herself, the ones that had intersected with The Doctor, pictures and faces, but mostly names come back to her from time to time, The Doctor’s Granddaughter Susan, a girl called Polly and a sailor called Ben, Zoe from the future and Jamie from the past, Rose and Donna, Captain Jack, and Martha, Martha who Clara had met.

Ace, Dodo, Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Mel, Peri, Tegan and Nyssa, brilliant Liz, funny Jo, and brave Sarah-Jane, sometimes Clara can remember them all, and other times it’s as if none of them every existed.

But Amy Pond isn’t a name Clara knows, unless Amy is short for Amelia, and The Doctor had once mentioned an Amelia.

"If you don’t want me or The Doctor what do you want?”

"Me.”

Sam answers simply.

"I want the version of me that’s travelling on the train with your Doctor.”


	26. 2nd From the Top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Sams, and a bit of Clara.

"I don’t understand, what’s going on.”

Maisie sobs into Perkins’ uniform.

At least she has stopped shrieking.

Sam is sitting heavily on a chair staring off through one of the large windows into space.

Space actual space, Sam’s in space.

Her hand is trembling; she tries to keep it still by resting it on her lap.

Two people are dead, Professor Moorhouse, and the Captain, the head of the Guards on the train, she doesn’t even know what his last name was.

She should at least know that, after all she had just watched him die.

Sam has never seen anyone die before, her Grandparents were all dead by the time she’d reached ten, then death was something that happened to old people, now it’s the thing that happens to everyone else.

Her hand keeps trembling.

She thinks of the image Professor Moorhouse had shown her of his daughter, that same smiling young woman, who is now an orphan.

Sam can’t stop herself from thinking of Chanelle, another orphan, what will happen to her if she never gets back…

What will happen to Dean, to Malcolm, their little family…

She’s losing everything; the last thing Sam cares about is whether or not she’s in space.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Why, do you want her?”

Clara asks cautiously. 

"She’s the only version of me, that I have found that matches my requirements. The world she comes from is so similar to my own; I won’t have to make any adjustments.”

How many other alternative worlds are out there?

How many versions of Clara are floating about?

Are there yet more Danny’s still alive?

Briefly Clara lets herself think about what it might be like to find Danny, to fall in love with him all over again, but it would never, could never be the same, it would always be pretend.

"Why, do you want her?”

Sam flashes her, a dark look, before her lips crack into a wide, unpleasant smile.

"I’m not interested in her life. All, I require from her is her body. After all, I can hardly go back to my daughter looking like this.”

The image of Sam folds away again, revealing the Cyberman beneath.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At least now they know why.

Perkins had worked it all out rather brilliantly, despite the handicap of having Maisie clinging to him throughout.

Illness, physical and mental, the weakest being picked off first. 

Professor Moorhouse had been in a car accident, a car accident that had killed his wife Delphine.

Delphine, Emile and François, DEF, Sam recalls Professor Moorhouse’s unfunny joke.

Her mind turns back to thoughts of herself, how long until it’s her turn?

If this thing, whatever it is, can feed on depression then Sam’s minutes are surely numbered.

Your husband going to prison, being hounded by the press, and then of course the other thing…

Subconsciously Sam rests her trembling hand against her stomach, her useless womb.

That is more than enough to make any normal person fall into the odd bout of ennui.

Her name must be close to the top of the list, somewhere probably under Maisie’s, and perhaps the grey bearded, elderly looking man hovering in the corner, looking all shifty.

Wait, just because he’s old doesn’t mean he’s on the point of death; he’s probably as strong as an ox.

The old man coughs a wheezy sort of rasp.   
Okay, so Sam’s name is probably either second or third after the old guy with the cough.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Clara thinks quickly, as normal service resumes and Sam returns to her human appearance.

The train, The Orient Express, Clara and Sam have swapped places, she’s with The Doctor, while Clara is stuck here in the middle of a Cyberfleet.

"She’s not safe.”

Clara blurts out.

"There’s something on the train killing the passengers. The Doctor and I, we were investigating,”

Well that’s at least partly true, Clara had gone off on her own in search of mystery and adventure, while she thought The Doctor was sleeping.

She’d wanted to surprise him, she’d wanted the chance to prove that she could do what he can do, only backwards and in heels.

She’d wanted to make him smile.

Because making The Doctor smile make Clara…

"What, what are you doing?”

Suddenly Clara is on her back, the restraints on the table rise up and grab her around the wrists and ankles, dragging her backwards, holding her in place.

Clara tries to struggle, but in the end, even her head doesn’t seem to want to move.

"Words are no longer of any use, I must scan your brain.”

Sam tells Clara, sounding every inch the Cyberman.


	27. The Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is my own interpretation of The Doctor's back story.  
> I love the idea that he aged naturally into the William Hartnell version of The Doctor, and that was The Doctor's orginal body before he regenerated.
> 
> Susan, Rose and Clara all get a mention.

Clara, what’s happening to Clara?

How do you solve a problem like an ancient Egyptian Mummy?

Who is next, probably Maisie?

From the corner of his eye, he watches the way the hysterical blonde woman clings to Perkins, and the way Perkins’ hand taps out a reassurance, against her shoulder blade.

Perkins likes her, he can tell, or at least he thinks he can, it’s hard, it’s always hard to understand certain types of emotion, because well, he was never brought up to it, on Gallifrey, things were different, nobody ever felt so strongly, no wonder he had to run away.

He never fitted in at home, always different, always weird, and perennially scruffy.

And the hats, he’d always loathed those ridiculous hats.

The hats on Earth have always been preferable.

The hats on Earth are stylish.

Did he really go to Earth just for its hats?

No, it’s what his Granddaughter had wanted, she’d wanted to call herself Susan and go to school on Earth, and well, he’d felt sorry for her, because he parents had decided to go off on that silly expedition, just for a summer, but the summers were always very long on Gallifrey.

But well, one or two hundred years without your parents that’s no real hardship, no he’d indulged Susan because she had been too much like him, and the things they said about her, were the same things, that they’d always said about him, and he wouldn’t have it, not for her.

She would never be a joke.

So, the TARDIS had stolen him, and the three of them had run away, broken every rule.

All that was gone now of course, the rules, Gallifrey, Susan stuck in an alternative world on Earth where he’d left her and hoped that she would be happy.

He’ll never know.

Now at least he has an excuse, he’s the most alien of all aliens.

What would Clara do if she could see him now?

Would she think he was a monster?

He is, of course he is, you don’t live so long or see so much, you can’t remain whole forever, and he has pulled himself apart so many, many times, he’ll never be the same.

Sometimes he finds himself longing for the time when he’d still been truly young, with that grey haired, old, craggy face, and his haughty, grumpy attitude, he’s the same now, but different, because now he is truly old, and this may very well be his last regeneration.

Is he the Valeyard?

What would happen to Clara then?

He’d have to leave her behind, he couldn’t take her with him.

Leave her on that beach…

Rose.

All this ticks through his mind in the blink of an eye, such is the weight a Time Lord must bare.


	28. Start the Clock

An endorphin rush, should tip the balance, or at least confuse whatever it is that’s hunting them.

Long enough for…

For them up there to get a fix, on her down here?

That’s a terribly long, long shot Doctor are you sure?

Why no Clara, I don’t have a clue, it will probably all go horribly, terribly wrong, but let’s find out.

He almost turns to smile at Clara, but then he remembers she’s up there too, and all that’s left is a Clara shaped hole.

A Clara shaped hole, he lets that roll around inside his brain.

Most of his other friends grew up, they out grew having adventures with a strange madman and his box, and they left.

That’s good…

That’s fine…

It hurts, but he finds a way through it, knowing that his friends are safe and happy, grown and well.

But then there are the others, the ones that are never, ever going to leave him, the ones that are ripped from his side by fate or force, he’s started to worry that Clara is falling more into that category since Danny’s death.

All pretence of a normal life has stopped for her, it’s all just sexy adventures and running around, almost dying all the time, and despite how much The Doctor loves it, having Clara all to himself, he wants her to paint her face a different colour and where her high, shelf reaching shoes again.

Dates, he wants her to start seeing other boys; boys like Danny, or girls, girls are good too.

Just not Jane Austen, whose death, is a fixed point in time.

Someone, anyone, boy or girl, who Clara can love, who she can have a future with, because they can never have that.

He strides over towards Perkins and Maisie, certain now of his plan.

He grabs Perkins roughly by the elbow, and drags him away from the still weeping Maisie.

They stop behind a computer console, safely out of ear reach of Maisie or Sam.  
"Doctor, I…”

Perkins begins to splutter.

"Kiss her.”

He fixes Perkins with his very best stare.

Perkins’ entire face turns as bright as a tomato. 

This is going to take forever.

"You like her. If you don’t want her to die the same way as Professor Moorhouse and the good Captain, you’ll kiss her.”

He does care.

Perhaps he doesn’t wear it as heavily as he once did, but the loss of life, of all life, of any life, save for a Dalek, always causes him great pain, the same pain, he just hides it better now.

"I hardly know her, Doctor.”

He rolls his eyes at Perkins’ coyness, if Clara was here, he’d get her to kiss Maisie, but she’s not, so the clever engineer is his second best bet, his only option.

"What does that matter, she likes you. She’ll let you kiss her, and afterwards she’ll probably want to hold hands, and eat crumpets, that’s your affair. But if you want the chance to visit a fairground and go on a big wheel with her, you should probably kiss her soon, since, well if you wait, she’ll die.”

Perkins just blinks at him.

Somewhere he knows he’s gone wrong with the old metaphors, he probably should have mentioned the dodgems, the universal symbol for ‘I want to go out with you’.

"Maisie is next, you’re sure Doctor?”

He nods, and doesn’t add that it’s 30/60 between Maisie and Sam.

"You think if I kiss Maisie, then the Mummy may skip her, but whose next?”

A man with principles.

"Leave the burden of that to me, Maisie will live, you’ll be saving her.”

Perkins gives a rather solemn jerk of his head, leaving him to head back off in Maisie’s direction.

He doesn’t watch, he doesn’t want to see Perkins’ kiss Maisie, he allows them at least some privacy.

While all the kissing is happening, he watches Sam from behind the monitor.

They’ve met before.

He hadn’t been able to place her at first, but now he knows who she is.

Sam catches him staring at her, and he watches frozen as she moves towards him.

"Tell Perkins to start the clock.”

She tells him sadly, softly, before turning her back on him to stare at the thing only she can now see.

Death is coming.

If he’s wrong, he’ll have condemned a woman he doesn’t know to a terribly death, and he’ll have lost any hope of rescuing Clara.

Sam is his bargaining chip for both lives.

"Start the clock.”


	29. Sam faces The Mummy

The clock is ticking for her.

This is it, she’s going to die.

After what’s probably the weirdest day she’s ever had, Sam is going to die.

Don’t look at it.

She doesn’t want to see The Mummy as it slowly lumbers towards her.

Every sinew in her body is screaming for her to run.

Run.

Run.

But what would be the point, that thing would still find her.

She can do this, dying is easy, everyone dies.

Sam won’t run.

She won’t beg for her life, or even try to fight, it’s over, and she doesn’t want to spend her final moments pointlessly.

How does she want to spend them?

With her family, with Malcolm and the kids.

Malcolm, if she could see him one last time, tell him…

Tell him what?

How sorry she is that they seem to have wasted so much time not being together?

When they’d first met, Sam had still been married to Ed, she’d loved Ed, and Malcolm had been a workaholic, it never would have worked then.

Alright then, how happy he has made her everyday since they have been together.

That’s what Sam would tell him.

She doesn’t want to go, she’s not ready.

They’d made a silly promise to each other that if, when, one of them has to die; Malcolm will do the gentlemanly thing and pop his clogs first.

Despite the tears pouring down her cheeks, Sam smiles at the thought of that memory.

Malcolm is going to be so angry when he finds out.  
Her Mum and Dad and Bex, Sam has almost forgotten them.

She’ll never get to meet her nephew or niece, or find out how it all turned out.

The harder she tries not to cry, the more she can’t seem to stop herself.

Everything around her has faded; the aperture has been narrowed, so that all that exists now are Sam and The Mummy.

She still can’t bring herself to look at it. 

Dean…

Chanelle…

Malcolm…

Sam tries to hold on to their faces, to their smiles, to their voices, crafting a shield against the fear.

Don’t be afraid.

How much longer does she have left?

One breath, and then another.

The elastic of time stretches, ready for the snap.

Sam blinks, and when she opens her eyes, Malcolm is suddenly there standing before her.

She smiles, as he slips one warm hand around her waist.

But it’s not her Malcolm, Sam can tell, it’s The Doctor, her Malcolm would never look at her like that, as if he didn’t know her.

"What are you doing?”

Sam asks with a hint of outrage, realising that it’s The Doctor’s hand that’s currently on her waist.

"Confusing the Transmat.”

The Doctor tells Sam in a horribly matter-of-fact way.

"I’m about to die.”

Sam observes.

"I don’t think so. After all, you’re what this is all about, whoever took Clara, did so because they thought she was you. Someone somewhere needs you very badly.”

The Doctor edges closer to Sam, so that their bodies are almost flushed, pressed together, she watches as he glances up at the ceiling above them.

Hope flickers inside Sam.

"Why do they want me?”

All thoughts of death begin to leave Sam’s mind.

"I don’t know, shall we find out?”

Sam doesn’t have the option of responding, no sooner have the words left The Doctor’s mouth than the pair are suddenly engulfed by burning white light.

Sam clings to The Doctor, and in return she feels his grip tightening on her.

The wiring of a machine fills Sam’s ears, as the light fades, The Doctor’s grip loosens, but only enough so it stops feeling as if Sam is about to cheat on her husband.

They’re not on the train anymore; the train’s interior has been replaced by curved metal walls, and a smooth silver floor.

The Doctor climbs down from the platform they’re standing on, holding out his hand to help Sam down, and into the space next to him.

Sam’s legs feel unsteady, and she finds herself holding The Doctor’s hand.

"Can you still see The Mummy?”

The Doctor asks her, as they hold hands.

Sam glances around the room, catching reflection, after reflection, but it’s all just The Doctor and her, no Mummy.

She shakes her head, and goes to take a breath, but nothing happens.

Sam tries to take another, again nothing.

Panic bubbles up inside her.

"I’m not, I can’t breath, I’m not breathing.”

She exclaims in a flurry.

The Doctor catches hold of her wrist searching for her pulse.

"They couldn’t find a way around the quantomlock, so they’ve had to freeze you at the point of your death.”

The Doctor explains, as Sam’s brain does back flips.

"That’s good.”

The Doctor smiles.

"Can you unfreeze me?”

Sam asks softly.

The Doctor doesn’t answer.

Sam jumps backwards as what she thought was a solid wall, suddenly draws apart a doorway forming in the centre.

The Doctor’s grip on her hand is warm and firm.

"YOU WILL COME WITH US.”

A mechanical voice orders them.

The doorway is backlit and Sam struggles to make out the shape of the person who is ordering them around, whoever they are, they are very tall.

"I want to see Clara Oswald.”

The Doctor says firmly.

"YOU WILL COME WITH US.”

The robotic voice repeats, unfazed by The Doctor’s demands.

The Doctor doesn’t move a muscle, but Sam finds herself considering their situation.

"You said they mistook me for Clara, but they’ve probably kept Clara safe, because I was with you, she’s their bargaining chip. This is a hostage exchange, I think.”

Sam inclines her head, whispering.

As soon as the words leave her mouth, Sam begins to think them over.

What will happen to her, if this really is a hostage exchange, once The Doctor and Clara Oswald are reunited, what will happen to Sam?


	30. The Doctor Has Arrived

Clara feels as if every cell in her body is suddenly on fire.

She screams.

Her head is at the point of bursting.

She screams, again.

This is it; this is how she is going to die, in so much pain.

She lets out a long howl. 

Through the fug of her agony Clara can hear Sam’s voice asking her questions, questions about The Doctor, about the other version of Sam, about the Orient Express.

Clara refuses to give way, gritting her teeth she bares the pain, reminding herself that it’s what The Doctor would do for her, he’d fight, and he’d never give in.

"You’re going to die.”

CybermanSam tells her.

"You’re killing yourself. Your body won’t be able to take much more; your brain is being boiled. You don’t have to suffer, you don’t have to die Clara, just tell me what I want to know, and this will all stop.”

It’s an effort just to shake her head, but somehow Clara manages.

The longer she holds out the more time she gives The Doctor.

She can do this.

Clara can be brave.

Let me be brave.

She wills herself.

Let me be brave.

Clara screams, again.

This is it; her scull feels as if it’s on the point of fracturing from the inside, but then, suddenly everything stops, the pain fades away, and Clara wonders if she’s dead, or really dying.

CybermanSam turns the machine off, and Clara lets out a long held sigh of relief.

"The Doctor has arrived.”

 

 

Sam finds herself staring at the back of the robot in front of her, leading the way.

It’s a Cyberman, she knows the type instantly, thanks to all the rainy afternoons Malcolm had suggested they watching some of his DVD collection for a change.

Doctor Who, always Doctor Who.

Malcolm would probably love this.

Malcolm, where is he, what’s happened to him, has he just stopped existing?

Sam can’t stand even entertaining such a thought, so she doesn’t, she tries very hard not to think about her husband or what might have happened to him.

So, Cybermen are very tall, Sam attempts to distract herself, and it’s actually very easy, it’s not every day you end up on a spaceship, surrounded by fictional robots.

The Doctor is still holding her hand, and she’s glad, every now and then one of his long fingers will twitch reminding Sam’s that she’s not alone, that he’s there with her.

Sam still hasn’t decided what sort of reality this is, a dream, a nightmare, madness, or something altogether more real, whatever it is, maybe she should contact her agent and step up a meeting with the head writer of Doctor Who, offer to do an episode, Malcolm would love it, she’d probably get some sort of medal for Wife of the Year.

Malcolm.

They stop walking, it’s such an abrupt halt Sam almost walks straight into the back of the Cyberman in front of her.

She’s standing shoulder to almost shoulder with The Doctor now, in yet another circular silver room, no widows, no visible doors other than the one they had just walked through, a Cyberman on either side of them.

Sam takes a breath, and then the screaming starts.

A woman’s screams rent the air around them.

Screams of agony growing louder and louder, bouncing of the highly polished walls.

Sam covers her hears with her hands in an attempt to block out the horrible sound, next to her she notices the muscles tensing in The Doctor’s jaw.

Those screams belong to Clara Oswald, Sam guesses immediately, but is the young school teacher already dead, or is she still being tortured? 

The Doctor doesn’t react.

The screaming stops.

At some point during the whole ordeal Sam must have closed her eyes, because when she opens them again, she finds herself looking at HERSELF.

She’s actually walking towards herself, flanked by more Cybermen.

But it’s not exactly Sam, it’s a younger version, wearing office clothes, a grey woollen pencil skirt, and a bright white shirt, items of clothing she’d given to a local charity shop years previously.

"Ah Doctor, what a pleasure to see you, again.”

Sam has absolutely know idea what’s going on, she does however know herself pretty well, and she doesn’t like the way she’s not looking at herself at all.

Her mind scrambles a little.

"I want Clara Oswald returned to me immediately.”

The Doctor demands in a tone that is shot through with the hardest of flint.

One glances, the younger version of Sam stares at her briefly.

Sam shivers.

"Of course, in an offer of good will you will be free to take your companion and depart the Cyberfleet in safety.”

That doesn’t really sound like something Sam would ever say, she’d never construct a sentence that verbose or patronising.

Sam doesn’t get the luxury of thinking any more about it, because the prone figure of Clara Oswald, sprawled out across the arms of a Cyberman, somewhat breaks Sam’s concentration.

She watches silently as a groaning Clara is carried into the room.

The younger Sam waves the Cyberman on, and The Doctor immediately comes forward to collect his battered companion.

"Oh Clara, my Clara.”

Sam hears The Doctor say softly as he carefully lifts Clara out of the Cyberman’s arms and into his own.

Clara’s teeth chatter as The Doctor lays her down against the cold, silver floor.

In Sam’s opinion Clara looks terrible, with dark circles under her eyes, and scorch marks around her head.

She starts to move towards the pair, but is suddenly stopped as a large silver hand wraps itself around her forearm.

"No, no, you have to let me go.”

Sam gasps, as she desperately tries to fight off the Cyberman.

"One companion, for another.”

The younger version of Sam says, and Sam realises that this is the part of the hostage negotiation where the hostages need to be swapped.

"Doctor, look out.”

Sam thinks she hears Perkins’ voice, and then the clatter of something bouncing across the floor, she barely has a moment to think before she is being dragged backwards out of the clutches of the Cyberman.

Someone is suddenly on top of her, she can smell grease, engine oil and stardust.

Then the bomb goes off.


	31. Chanelle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chanelle makes a brief appearance in this chapter.

Chanelle sits down on the edge of the bed next to Sam.

Progress.

Sam doesn’t say anything, because Chanelle has slowly morphed from moody startled deer, into well less of a startled deer, she’s still moody, but then she is almost a teenager, and, and…well…

Sam’s brain stalls.

She sniffs, has she really been crying over the prospect of going on holiday, that’s usually Malcolm’s thing.

"What’s going on here?”

Chanelle enquires in a no-messing tone of voice.

Sam suddenly feels as if their roles have been dramatically reversed.

She bites her lower lip, and squeaks out a weak "Nothing”.

Chanelle seems entirely unconvinced by this.

"Don’t you want to go on holiday?”

The younger girl fixes Sam with a probing stare.

"Um well not really, trains are a bit boring, and I once heard that Venice was like being stuck in an overpriced drain.”

Has she actually just quoted Ollie Reeder?

Suddenly she’s back in the old office laughing with Malcolm, and Ben Swaine of all people, as Malcolm regales them about Ollie Reeder’s miserable holiday with his horrible girlfriend, after that brief sojourn the bollocking of Ben had commenced.

Chanelle is still staring at her.

"That’s crap, you don’t really think that.”

She’s right of course.

Sam hangs her head in shame.

"If you’re worried about Dean and me, don’t be,”

Sam raises her head, and opens her mouth, but Chanelle cuts her off.

"You’re sending us to a place for a whole week that has outdoor and indoor pools, an actual real life butler, and a massive home cinema system, compared to that, living with you and shouty man, is seriously third world.”

Chanelle snorts.

Sam doesn’t quite know how to take her adopted daughter’s comments, in the end she flashes Chanelle a watery smile.

"But, I, I wanted our first holiday to be a family one.”

Chanelle sucks the air between her teeth.

"Last time I checked yeah, Somerset wasn’t abroad. I dunno, I mean you can never tell with Brexit.”

Chanelle shrugs her slumped shoulders.

Sam’s smile widens.

"You sound like, Malc.”

"Oh please, as if he could string a sentence together without fu,”

"Chanelle.”

Sam softly corrects her adopted daughter before the expletive has the chance to escape.

"Whatever. The point is, are you guys planning on going forever, are Dean and me gonna have to start learning Italian, are you never coming back?”

The spectre of Sam and Malcolm never coming back had reappeared twice in a matter of seconds.

"No, of course we’re coming back.”

"Right, well, just come back then. Go on holiday, buy some overpriced crap, take some shit boring photos of stuff nobody wants to see, and by nobody I mean me, and just come back.”

 

Just come back.

 

Sam’s eyes open.

She’s lying on her side, on the floor, curled into a tight ball.

Her ears are ringing.

She can’t here.

Perkins’ face is suddenly in front of her, he’s reaching for her hand, his mouth moving, but all Sam can hear is a muffled wining.

Her lungs fill up with dust, and she starts to cough.

Suddenly Perkins is pulling her up onto her feet.

The room has collapsed around them.

Bits of Cybermen are scattered across the floor, and arm, a leg, a head.

Sam can see The Doctor and Clara, Clara with one arm wrapped around The Doctor’s neck as they hobble forwards to make their escape.

Just come back.

The Doctor turns, waving frantically for Sam and Perkins to join him.

Just come back.

Holding tightly onto Perkins had, Sam makes a run for it.

Just come back.


	32. Sam Cassidy

As the smoke begins to clear, Sam watches herself retreat.

She’s experienced a great deal of weirdness in her life, but the sight of watching herself run away from herself, tips the balance.

Her systems are attempting to reboot, she can feel the dull clank, the rumble and hiss.

Fatally compromised.

She diverts all vital systems upwards, she must keep her brain working.

Only it’s not actually her brain, her brain was destroyed about five years or more ago, along with her first suit, she’s never given it much thought, how she can possibly still exist.

Yet she does.

Life has found a way, still continues inside of her, she still retains that unique quality, which make her Sam Cassidy. 

The Cyberplanner must survive.

This is what she tells the unit, as she downloads herself into his perfectly functioning body.

It is a him.

A him from a planet she has never seen with her own eyes, will never see with her own eyes, because the Cyberfleet destroyed it, and well she doesn’t have eyes in the conventional sense of the word.

A she deletes him, she opens up what’s left of his memory and stares at that orange and green planet that no longer exists, it was beautiful and it is sad.

As the new system around her reboots itself, Sam takes a breath and a moment.

All that’s left of that planet is within her now, and she adds it to herself, remembering, recalling, forgetting, she’s still Sam, still Sam, but more.

She can’t keep doing this.


	33. Deadlock Sealed or Something Spacey

Sam’s lungs are burning as she coughs against the acrid, burning smoke.

Alien metal, what will that do to her insides?

She’s not thinking clearly, that’s probably a side effect of being blown up.

She’s just been blown up.

Sam has never been blown up, not ever.

Despite feeling as if she’s about to cough up her own lung, Sam is running, following behind The Doctor and Perkins as between them, they carry the battered form of Clara.

Clara and Perkins seem to both have come off worse from the blast, they’re both bleeding profusely from various cuts, and Clara looks seriously singed around the head region.

When Sam knows she can’t go any further they suddenly stop.

The respite for running down corridors isn’t for her benefit, it’s so that Clara and Perkins can both take a breath, Sam is sure The Doctor has forgotten that she is even there.

"No, we need to keep moving.”

Clara chastises The Doctor weakly as she is carefully lowered to the metallic floor.

Propped up against the wall, Clara looks so much smaller, reminding Sam of an old rag doll, who has been played with one to many times.

To her untrained eyes, Clara looks as if she is dying.

"Pardon me Miss, but I could really do with the breather.”

Perkins exhales as he slides down into the space next to Clara.

Sam steps away from the small, beleaguered group to take a quick look down the corridor.

The doors at both ends are firmly closed, because The Doctor had done something to them with his Sonic Screwdriver.

For now, for the time it will take either Perkins to get his breath back, or for Clara to die they are safe.

"She’s insane, and I’m not talking Missy insane. She has a mission.”

Clara’s words pull Sam back into the conversation, and she wanders back towards the group.  
Clara eyes her cautiously, as The Doctor waves his Sonic over her.

"Well, you know, ah Clara,”

When The Doctor smiles he looks just like Malcolm.

"…most, ah, insane people, usually think they’re on some sort of a mission. Even Missy,”

When Clara reaches out for The Doctor’s hand, Sam has to look away, because that’s her husband some other woman is touching.

Perkins, Perkins needs her.

"That was really brave.”

Sam tells Perkins as she kneels down next to him.

Perkins’ face creases into a pained looking smile.

"I should have set the timer for longer.”

Sam doesn’t know how to respond to that, she thinks about ripping some part of the silken pyjama bottoms she’s wearing up to make a bandage for the nasty looking wound on Perkins’ head, but he hands her a clean looking handkerchief instead. 

"Where’s Maisie?”

Sam asks, as she dabs at the blood on Perkins’ head.

"Still on the train. She let me use her teleporter. It’s sort of like a…ah… ”

"I’m sorry.”

Sam apologies quickly, realising that her whole Florence Nightingale act is probably doing more harm than actually good at this point.

"It’s alright, Miss.”

Sam’s eyes suddenly well up with tears, and just when everyone else is keeping it together, being so strong and brave, she’s the one falling apart, because she weak, she’s always been weak, she is weak, maybe it would be better if she just…

"Parachute.”

Perkins says.

"Maisie’s teleporter is a bit like an old fashioned parachute, should anything happen, it would deposit her on the closest inhabited planet. Nice bit of kit, expensive, I reprogrammed it to take me here, to you.”

"You’re a genius, Perkins.”

The Doctor congratulates the Engineer, as Sam struggles to pull herself together.

Sam watches as Perkins passes a small emerald green object to The Doctor, she guesses it must be Maisie’s teleporter.

The Sonic is out again, making that funny noise over the teleporter, and Sam notices that Clara’s eyes are shut. 

"It’s burnt out.”

The Doctor’s voice is filled with exasperation.

Despite the fact that the teleporter is useless, Sam notices that The Doctor still puts it inside his pocket.

"Right,”

The Doctor suddenly leaps back onto his feet.

"Perkins you stay here with Clara. Those doors are deadlock sealed, not even an asteroid could get though, you'll both be safe here. You.”

Sam jumps back a little as she’s suddenly pointed at.

"You’re just walking wounded, you’re coming with me.”


	34. Miss First Class Degree

Leaving Clara and Perkins’ behind in the corridor, that all seems to happen very quickly, what really takes the time is negotiating their way through what Sam guesses are ventilation shafts.

She’s climbing through ventilation shafts with Doctor Who, Malcolm would love this.

Malcolm.

Chanelle.

Dean.

Sam would follow The Doctor into hell itself, if it would lead her back to her family. 

She’s never been particularly great with enclosed spaces, and these enclosed spaces, not much more than thin silver tubes seem to go on and on forever.  
Maybe they’re dead already, and this is some sort of hell.

On her way to one of her very first meetings with Malcolm, before she realised he was human, and well a long time before they’d gotten married, or every actually kissed, she’d never looked at him like that…and she’s rambling…

Anyway, Sam had been on her way to accompany Malcolm to something or the other, basically make sure he was well stocked with Fanta, and to hold his coat while he shouted, she’d gotten lost in one of the underground stations, every set of stairs lead her back down onto the same platform, and for a good 15 minutes she’d thought she may have died, and that this was her not very good version of the afterlife.

It had all sorted itself out in the end, but now that hollow terror Sam had felt is back. 

"Why do you look like him?”

She asks in an effort to keep her thoughts occupied.

Sam’s not sure if The Doctor is purposefully ignoring her, or if he hasn’t heard her, so she tries again.

"You look just like my husband. Well, the hair is a bit different, yours is all puffy and out of control, but your faces are basically the same. Why are your faces the same?”

Sam thinks that The Doctor is going to ignore her again, but he stops, stops shuffling along.

He half turns in the tube, his back against what would probably be best described as a wall.

The Doctor looks at her.

"I didn’t want to get into this with you, because a tiny pudding brain like yours,”

Tiny brain…

"I got a first class degree in History, it’s pretty much useless in the real world, but I can assure you, my brain isn’t made out of pudding. Try me.”

Sam cuts him off, fixing him with her best stare in the half light of the ventilation tube.

"Alright, as you wish, Miss first class degree.”

The Doctor pulls his lips back exposing his teeth as he smiles.

"There’s not just one Universe, there a multiples upon multiples. Every time you open a door, or decide what breakfast not to feed your not-pudding brain, you create a possibility, and within that exists a whole other universe. There are as many versions of you and I, as there are grains of sand on Blackpool beach.”  
"I already know that She is me, are you trying to tell me that my husband Malcolm, is you?”

The Doctor rolls his eyes, and then rather painfully pokes Sam in her forehead.

"Listen, First Class Degree, I hadn’t finished my mysterious, comic ramble, that’s what Clara,”

The Doctor takes a moment.

"You’re from Terry’s World. Terry’s World is nice, it’s one of the nicer alternative Universes,”

"Oh what with slavery, and the Holocaust, ISIS and Donald Trump as the American President, yeah it’s a real peach.”

It’s Sam’s turn to do a bit of serious eye rolling.

"It’s still one of the better ones, look at what happened to the other version of you.”

A mental, metal robot, he’s got a point there.

"I’m not your husband, Sam.”

The Doctor exhales heavily.

"I interfered with history, I do that a lot, according to well…I interfered with history and that’s why there are lots of little Tuckers and Frobishers running around.”

"Frobishers?”

Looking suddenly extremely tired, The Doctor drags one hand over his face.

"They’re Tuckers in Terry’s World.”

Sam thinks about asking about Terry’s World, but changes her mind, this probably isn’t the best time.

The Doctor is looking at Sam as if he wants her to do or say something, so she does.

"Now that, that’s all cleared up, shall we keep on going?”

The Doctor blinks once, then twice, then turns, and they resume their slow progress.

After a beat Sam asks.

"Where are we going, anyway?”


	35. There's Nothing I Can Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning Character Death.

They’re on their way to find some big transporter, in the hopes of getting back on the train, finding The Tardis and then rescuing Clara and Perkins from the perilous position they had left them in…

Well, that’s what The Doctor had told Sam.

It doesn’t sound like the best plan in the world, in fact it doesn’t sound like a plan at all, just a desperate bit of busking, but that’s about all they have, busking and hope.

Hope has never really worked out for Sam in the past, for instance she’d hoped that Malcolm wouldn’t get sent to prison, she’d hoped that this baby would be the one that made it, she’d hoped to least scrape a B for her Maths GSCE…

Maths…the bane of her life…

Where was she, again?

Oh yeah, crawling through ventilation shafts on a spaceship in the middle of some alien battle fleet, being pursued by a mental, metal robot version of herself from an alternative Universe, all standard City break stuff.

Sam is unbelievably thankful by the time they finally reach their destination, because unlike how it appears in most films, crawling through ventilation shafts isn’t the cleanest or most enjoyable experience, it’s dusty, and hot, Sam is sweating so much she’s pretty sure Clara’s satin pyjamas trousers are probably see-through, her hands and knees also hurt.

The Doctor helps Sam out after him, and every sinew of her body screams in pleasure as she is finally able to stand up straight.

The Doctor looks terrible, his black jacket having turned a dingy grey.

It’s unconscious, before she can stop herself Sam is attempting to brush some of the dust from his shoulder because, because…he just looks so much like Malcolm that it hurts.

Sam has been trying to keep that thought out of her head for so long, that it’s snuck up on her from nowhere.

Alright, so they had discussed the mechanics of why The Doctor looks like Malcolm, but Sam had tried desperately hard to squash deep down, how seeing her husband, the way he looks at Clara, the way he seldom even notices that she exists, having him so close and not being able to do any of the normal things she’d like to do, how any of that makes Sam feel. 

The Doctor’s eyes widen, and for the briefest of moments, Sam wonders if he’s actually thinking all the same things that she is.

She also remembers the incident from the train, when Sam had still thought that The Doctor was Malcolm, and he’d said that he was married, not married to Clara, Sam can tell, clearly married to someone, though.

Sam thinks about asking, after all The Doctor clearly knows a little about her, she should know at least a little about him in return, since they’re both most likely to end up dying horribly together.

Funny, because of all the things Sam had worried about before embarking on this holiday, death wasn’t one of them.

"That’s so sweet. Did you two have a bonding moment in your funny little tube, I think you did.”

Sam jumps at the sound of her own voice, pulling her hand back from The Doctor’s shoulder as if she’s been caught doing something indecent. 

"What would Malcolm say?”

Sam glances around the room she now finds herself in, shiny steal and empty, and yet the sound of her own voice seems to surround her.

She looks at The Doctor whose brow is furrowed deep in concentration.

"Why don’t we ask Clara?”

With the mention of the C word something instantly changes in The Doctor’s demeanour.

Sam watches as The Doctor’s eye flare wildly.

"But I thought you said Clara and Perkins would be safe, not even an asteroid could get through the doors, double locked, that’s what you said.”

Suddenly from the pained expression written across The Doctor’s face Sam knows that he’s lying, that he’d lied to all three of them, she can tell, because she knows Malcolm’s face so well.

"Oh, but what’s this, dissention in the ranks, and just when you two were getting on so well.”

Sam’s laugh is hollow and braying, and she finds herself wondering if that’s what she sounds like when she laughs.

The answer is probably yes, just not as insane.

"Doctor?”

Clara’s weak sounding voice obliterates all before it.

"Clara?”

The Doctor is suddenly animated, waving his Sonic Screwdriver around in the air.

This is the point that Sam finally gives up.

She’s sorry, she truly is.

Sorry for not being stronger.

There was a time when she’d been strong, but life had gotten the better of her.

"Doctor, whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t. She’s mad, she’s going to kill us, whatever you do, so don’t do it. Run away, take Sam, be clever and run away.”

Sam slumps to the floor, covering her hands over her ears in an attempt to block out Clara’s words.

She can’t be brave.

She can’t do it anymore.

"Clara?”

"Doctor, it’s alright. I knew, I knew this might happen one day, it’s alright, and it’s not your fault. I’m not afraid, I don’t blame you.”

"Clara, MY Clara.”

Sam’s not sure how it ends up in her hand, one minute her right hand is empty, and the next it has a metal bar curled tightly against it.

No real plan.

She just wants it all to end.

The Doctor doesn’t even notice as she hits him hard in the back of his head, he slumps to the fall all the same.

At the sight of the blood, Sam drops the bar, and it clatters to the highly polished floor.

"I don’t want to run anymore. Do what you want to me, but leave Clara, and Perkins, and The Doctor alone.”

Defeated and beaten, Sam doesn’t even flinch as the Cybermen appear.

"That’s all I ever wanted.”

 

 

Sam doesn’t want to die.

She just knows that she doesn’t have a choice, this is the end of everything, and she can either run and hide from it, or she can accept it.

Try to accept it.

They pump so much sedative into her blood steam that by the end, she can barely lift her head to glance at Clara and Perkins, and everything the other version of Sam says about memory transfers and not feeling a thing, just floats clean out of her head.

But that’s alright, because other Sam, other Cyberman Sam only wants her body, not her brain or her life, just her body so she can go back through some time vortex and be a Mum to her daughter, Sophia.

Sam learns all this as her mind is slowly deleted, as she’s replaced and overwritten.

 

 

The sound of Clara’s crying is the thing that causes The Doctor’s eyes to open.

Not dramatic sobs, or hysterical tears, just the sound of someone’s soul shattering.

His head hurts.

"Clara?”

He winches as he says her name.

Clara turns her tear streaked face to his.

"Clara, my Clara.”

He utters the words softly.

As more of the world sinks in around him, The Doctor notices that Perkins is on the other side of Clara, that all three of them seem to be restrained in Cyberconveration units, and that Sam is missing.

He already knows why Sam is missing.

"Did she do it?”

The Doctor asks.

"Yes, she did it, she killed Sam, and she made us watch.”

Good, The Doctor’s glad she made them watch, that way, hopefully what happens next will be less of a burden to Clara.

He lifts his aching head up.

He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this that he’d win, he’d safe everyone, but some days don’t work out as well as others.

The Doctor sees Sam standing in the corner of the room, admiring her stolen skin in a hand mirror.

How much time was left on the clock?

It comes, as The Doctor knew it would, as soon as Sam died time had restarted.

She doesn’t see it, and even though it’s invisible to The Doctor’s eye, he imagines The Mummy places a bandaged hand on either side of Sam’s head.

She dies with a shriek.

The room suddenly falls into chaos, well chaos for Cybermen.

With the Cyberplanner dead there a sudden scramble for power and in the confusion The Doctor finds his Screwdriver, which is miraculously still in his pocket, he frees himself, then Clara, and finally Perkins, and then the three of them are literally running for their lives.

The Doctor tries not to give Sam a second thought as he manages to teleport all three of them back onto The Train.

There’s kissing thankfully of the Perkins/Maisie variety, he frees The Mummy solider from its curse, and they all end up happily on some beach somewhere, all except Sam that is.

Throughout all this however Clara looks at him as if he has failed in someway, and she’s right, he had failed, and he’ll probably fail again, but there’s nothing he can do.

"There’s nothing I can do.”


	36. Can We Finish Our Milkshake, First

"How do you feel?”

It’s a really stupidly simple question.

How does she feel?

Dead, mostly.

That’s too flippant, even for her.  
How does she feel?

Well apart from the ‘being technically dead’ part, the only other descriptive that pops in her head is free.

For the first time in her life she feels free.

All of the petty worries and concern of everyday life have melted away to nothing, because everything now is certainty, she’s dead, and that’s okay, being dead is the gift she never knew she wanted.

She can see clearly, the scales have been lifted, only the most important things matter now, like spending time with her Dad and her Gran, even her Step-Mum.

She’ll miss The Doctor, she’ll miss him more than words can easily say, but she’ll always have a piece of him with her, where it counts, helping her to do the right thing, to make her the best version of herself, also annoying the heck out of her.

She can never see him again, but that’s okay to, because she’ll never forget his face, either of them, any of them.

It was love, but it wasn’t, two souls made for one another, but not.

He won’t remember her, not ever, but maybe, because that Doctor is an incredible man, so who knows, maybe one day she’ll hear him say her name, again.

Maybe…

One day…

Clara shrugs off Ashildr’s question and asks.

"Do you think he’ll be, okay?”

Ashildr pauses for a moment before taking a long slurp from her strawberry milkshake.

"He’s The Doctor, he’ll never be okay.”

Clara takes a sip from her own glass, chocolate.

The pair are seated in the diner section of Clara’s Tardis.

Clara has a Tardis, she still can’t take that thought in, it won’t fit inside her brain.

"Any thoughts on where or when you might want to go?”

Ashildr questions.

Everywhere.  
She’d like to see Jane again, explain what’s happened, and why for a while at least they might not see each other.

But first…

"There’s something I want to change, if I can.”

"It’s not some big historical event is it?”

Ashildr asks cautiously.

Clara shakes her head.

"Well, depends how you look at it, a lot of people might not die. It’s just saving one person, that’s all. I’m not overthrowing a government. I sort of asked The Tardis a question once, The Doctor’s Tardis, and she told me what might have happened, had this thing…urgh…I don’t know. Someone I liked died, and I want to save her.”

Ashildr’s eyebrow quirks upwards, Clara can almost read her mind.

"It was nothing like that, I didn’t fancy her. I don’t know why, but out of all of them, the deaths that I’ve seen, it’s her death, that’s always stayed with me.”

Ashildr looks at Clara as if she understands her perfectly.

"Can we finish our milkshakes first?”

The Viking girl says with a smile. 

 

Sam’s not sure how long she has been lying there holding on tightly to Jamie’s hand, or when exactly he’d slipped in unconsciousness.

The world has gone mad.

They are both going to die.

"Sam.”

The sound of her name causes Sam to sit bolt up right, as a shadow falls across the interior of the office.

"Sam.”

She turns her head, and sees a woman wearing the blue and white uniform of a waitress, leaning out of what appears to be a floating American style diner.

Sam blinks.  
The Waitress hops in through the broken window, the sound of class crunches beneath her trainers.

"I can save you.”

The Waitress tells her holding out her hand.

Because she knows that none of this is real it somehow makes it all easier, Sam takes The Waitress hand in her own, and is amazed as she’s helped to her feet by someone solid, as flesh and blood as herself.

There are about a million questions she should ask right about now, but Sam doesn’t, she doesn’t question it, she just goes with it all.

"My friend, Jamie, I think he’s dying, please, please help him.”

The Waitress nods.

"It’s alright Sam, I’ve got him.”

 

Sam sits in a time travelling American style diner with a blanket over her shoulders, and a cup of steaming tea in front of her.

They’d gotten Jamie to a hospital in Bristol just in time.

How was she going to explain to Cat how Jamie had ended up in a hospital in Bristol…

That didn’t seem to matter, Jamie was alive, Cat would have to understand.

For most of the journey Sam hasn’t been able to speak, she’s just been sitting there watching The Waitress and another girl busily saving her life, and the life of her friend.

They come to a sudden halt, and Sam knows that this is probably where she gets off.

"Is this me?”

She asks The Waitress carefully, the warmth of the blanket slips from her shoulders.

The Waitress flashes Sam a bright smile.

"Be careful, The Cybermen did a real number on your street,”

Sophia, Bex…

Sam doesn’t think, she doesn’t stop to say thank you, at the mention of the devastation on the street where she lives Sam bolts out of the diner.  
Sam blinks.

Her house.

While almost every other house has been reduced to rubble, her house is intact, the windows have been blown out, but other than that…

None of that matters.

Sophia.

Bex.

Sam runs into her house, calling the names of her sister and her daughter.

No reply.

The cellar is the empty.

The house is so quiet.

Then she hears it, laughter.

Her sister Bex is laughing.

Sam follows the sound as it leads her through the house and out into the garden, where she sees her sister Bex laughing with Sophia and Malcolm.

Malcolm.

Malcolm is dead.

Does that mean none of them made it?

Oddly enough that doesn’t matter, the four of them are together, and that’s all that matters to Sam.

 

"What happens to them?”

Clara inquires, as she leans against the doorway of the diner watching Sam and Malcolm hug their daughter.

"They have another baby, which they call Ottaline of all things, poor baby. They get married, then they get divorced, then they get remarried.”

"Remarried?”

Clara exclaims turning her attention away from Sam and her family, letting the dinner door swing shut.

"Some couples do that. You’re telling me you’ve never gone back to an ex?”

Clara thinks about this for a moment, and then shakes her head.

"No, all my exes, tend to stay ex.”

"I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ashildr says ruefully, before quickly changing the subject.

"What does this mean for your friend?”

"Well, since this version of Sam never got all Cyberman-ie, then she would have had no reason to be on the train with The Doctor and me.”

"Do you want to check?”

Ashildr asks.

"Lets deal with Perkins and Maisie first, then we’ll check on Sam.”

"You’re turning into a proper little match-maker.”

Ashildr teases, Clara gives her a playful shove and both women end up giggling.


	37. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phew...so it's finally over...  
> I'm glad, as this hasn't been the most enjoyable story to write.  
> Thank you to everyone who has stuck with it until the bitter end, and I hope you stick around for the next one.

Stifling a yawn against the back of her hand, Sam pull the familiar weight of her keys out of her pocket.

Malcolm is bringing up the rear with the cases, and most importantly paying the taxi fare.

The holiday is over; the week had literally sped by, she’s caught the sun, and Malcolm of course hasn’t, he’d been the whitest man in Venice, he’d practically glowed.

"All right love, did ye find the keys?”

Sam turns to see Malcolm laden down with duty free carrier bags, hauling their seriously overstuffed suitcase up the garden path.

Maybe he’d been right, maybe she had bought too much, but in fairness most of it was presents for the kids, all four of them, as well as something for Cat and Trevor, and well her parents, and…

Malcolm was right, she had bought too much.

Malcolm comes to a halt next to Sam with something of a wheezy gasp.

Oh yes, not only had her dear husband been the palest man in Venice he’d also been the sickest, developing full blown symptoms of a very, very nasty cold.

Poor Malcolm his nose, which is well large already, had blown up like a balloon.

Sam had been forced to do a lot of guilty sight seeing, while Malcolm had been laid up in their hotel room, coughing his guts up.

"You look a bit better,”

Sam lies.

"How are you feeling?”

She asks, placing a kiss on his cheek.

Malcolm gives her a watery, blood shot stare, which says about everything.

"Come on, we’ve got a little while before your sister drops the kids off, I’ll make you a cuppa and some lunch in bed, if you like.”

Malcolm’s grey pallor lifts a little, as his face splits into a wide grin.

"I like, very much.”

Sam turns the key in the lock, the smell of a house unlived in greets her, as she ushers Malcolm inside before closing the door.

 

Malcolm, Sam, Chanelle and Dean with return in…Malcolm Tucker and the New Addition


End file.
